Originally Posted by
bakerjw
Fiddling with it a bit, I got it where it will shift up to the 2nd smallest gear properly and on up and down the sequence, but it doesn't want to drop into the low gear again. If I manually aid the return spring with my hand it will drop into the smallest gear. I have gone in and lubricated all of the moving parts of the derailleur but to no avail.
.
...at this point, the most common cause of your symptom I know of is some sort of cable tension issue, with the rear derailleur cable either adjusted just a skosh too tight so it won't allow the rear to drop all the way to small, or possibly some sort of burr or other friction increasing impediment on one of your recently cut and installed cable housings at an end jooint. Try pulling the cable with your hand some place where it runs bare, like along the chainstay, and work it back and fort to see if it's running free.
You already lubricated all the pivot points on the rear derailleur (which is the other common cause). Did you work the rear derailleur back and forth a bunch of times by hand to make sure it's running freely ? If not, you might want to try that too.... also cursing. Cursing is appropriate in certain situations like this one.
Finicky adjustment on stuff like this is why I don't run much over 8 in the rear. More than that and I quickly lose patience with the setup.