mrbc19

Hi all, this is my first post, sorry it is so long. I have searched the forums, and visited the parktool page for adjusting front derailleurs, and I still have problems.

I have a sora triple front derailleur on a Felt srd92. I bought it brand new two weeks ago. I know absolutley nothing about bike mechanics.

My problem started a few days ago, when my front derailleur would not shift from the smallest chainring up to the second one. I foolishly started playing with the limit screws on the derailleur, which I think ended up making the problem worse. I came here and looked up info, and discovered I should not have started messing with those screws right away.

So I went to the parktool page on FD adjustment and tried to follow it step by step, but ran into issues.

In the first section, it says to:
"Inspect height alignment of front derailleur. The outer cage plate must be positioned over the largest chainring when viewing height. Simply grab the exposed front derailleur inner wire until outer cage plate is directly over outer chainring teeth. Use care to not shift the derailleur cage past this point. Note height and direction of change needed. It is then necessary to relax the cable to loosen the mounting bolt and raise or lower the height as needed."

My problem is that I have no idea what this even means. Pulling on the wire did not do anything to the derailleur - it wouldn't shift, or even budge at all. Am I doing something wrong here?

So I just moved on assuming that the height and alignment was correct, probably a mistake. I started the limit screw adjusments, which is where things got really whacky. The L screw worked fine, I adjusted it so that the cage was the proper distance from the chain. I shifted the derailleur up to the largest chainring and outermost cog on the cassette, and had to actually move the chain with my hands on the chainrings to get it to move becuase the derailleur would not shift it (which was the original problem). Then I tried to adjust the H screw, but turning the screw either direction would not do anything to the derailleur.

At this point I became frustrated and started adjusting the cable tension with the barrel adjuster and the bolt where it actually connected to the derailleur. After probably an hour of messing about, I came to the point where the derailleur would easily shift from the smallest chainring to the second, and back, but would not go to the largest one, because somehow I had adjusted the derailleur so that when it was in the 3rd gear on the shifter, it was positioned so that it moved the chain only to the second chainring. Additionally, the L and H screws somehow reversed their action, so that the L screw no longer moved the derailleur in any way and the H scew was acting the like the L screw did at the beginning.

I have no idea what is going on, I have probably thrown alot of things out of whack. I am giong to take the bike back to the shop this weekend for an early "30 day" tune up, but I would like to know if anyone can tell me what I messed up, or if perhaps I broke something - so that I don't do it agin in the future.

Thanks in advance!

vpiuva

You may want to look at your shifter. It has to be set for the smallest chainring before you mess with anything, and you need to make sure that the cable is seated properly in the shifter before you start adjusting anything. Shift all the way to the smallest ring, loosen all your limit screws - go ahead and adjust the lower limit with the rear in the biggest cog, loosen your adjuster barrel - leave a thread just in case, pull on your brake lever, look inside and inspect the cable end. Make sure it is seated all the way. Pull your cable taught and tighten at the rear derailleur. Now you can begin adjusting. Ride, enjoy.

Rev.Chuck

To check the height of the der, look at it from the side eyes level with the top of the chainring, and swing the der over with you hand. Put your fingers behind the cage and your thumb on the cable stop and swing it over. Then look at it from above to check that it is square.
Screw your adjuster back in, shift to the low gear(front and back, biggest gear in back), loosen the cable, set the low screw so you have a little clearance between the chain and der cage, tighten up the cable.
You might want to look at another bike and make sure the cable is routed on the der correctly as this affects the amount of "pull" you get.
Shift up to the second gear, if it does not go tighten(half turn) the adjuster and try again. Once it will shift up, to second, with minimal effort, shift the back to the smallest gear and see if you get rubbing on the outer plate. If you do you need to adjust the cable a little tighter. Now shift to third, and check your upper limit, as long as you are not getting rub, turn the screw in until it just touches. Now shift back to second and back to third. If it does not want to go, open the screw a quarter turn.
Sorry this is a little brief, I got to get to work, good luck.

mrbc19

I will try to do these things when I get home from work. Hopefully something fixes it. But at this point I think I might just give up myself and take it to the bike store for them to fix it.

tellyho

I think you need a clearer understanding of what each component does:

Limit screws only stop the derailleur from moving where you don't want it to. Think of them as guardrails on the highway. You want your derailleur set so that it is positioned correctly over the small ring in gear 1 and correctly over the big ring in gear 3. Limit screws only affect how far in or out it CAN go.

For the rest, you are adjusting cable tension so that your brifter actually PUTS the derailleur where you WANT it when you shift. This is the steering wheel. Gross cable adjustments are achieved by unscrewing the bolt that holds the cable onto the drailleur, moving the cable, and retightening the bolt. Fine adjustments are achieved with adjuster barrels somewhere in the cable system (either at the brifter, or on your downtube).

I imagine your derailleur height is okay, as the bike is new.

Follow the excellent instructions above, and you should be able to get it working well. It takes some time to get used to how things work on the bike and what you need to do to make them work better.

mrbc19

Yea, I think initially before I read anything on here I was adjusting the screws to achieve the wrong end. I think my main problem is the cable tension. After I adjusted it so that the derailleur shifted correctly up to the 3rd gear, it would not shift back down unless I unscrewed the bolt attaching the cable to the derailleur, to completely release tension. Does that mean that the cable tension was too tight?

DougG

Just a couple of notes from someone who has just adjusted a Sora FD for the first time and has it working (at least on the stand -- to cold and icy to try it out for real).

- One place you might have gone wrong is that you really need to adjust the L screw with no tension on the cable. Otherwise, you're not really adjusting it. After adjusting the L screw, with your shifter in the low-gear position, you should start with the cable taut but not pulling the DR out of its position against the screw.

- If you use the Shimano instructions for the DR, I found it a bit confusing that they talk about "tightening" the barrel adjuster from the sense that turning the adjuster clockwise turns it into the fitting like your tightening a screw, but this actually loosens the cable. I'd rather they say to tighten the cable, which means turning the adjuster out, or counter-clockwise.

- Be sure to follow the instructions for which sprocket front and rear to have the chain on at the various steps.

- Depending on your shifters (with or without a "trimming" feature), you will probably have trouble adjusting the FD so that it does not scrape in certain gear combos. But this is typical and you should adjust it so it works for the more-used combos and then just avoid the others (typically small-small or large-large).

-- DG

Al1943

Somthing else that you need to understand is that Shimano shifters for road bike triple cranksets have four (4) main shift positions for the three chainrings. When shifting from the smallest chainring it is normal to need to shift up two positions to get the chain to climb to the middle chainring. When riding with the chain on the middle chainring there are two positions for the front derailleur, slightly to the left and slightly to the right of the middle chainring. These two positions allow the rider to use the extreme left or extreme right side of the cassette with no chainrub on the front derailleur. When riding with the chain on the big chainring it should take one click to shift to the middle chainring but then two more clicks to go to the smallest chainring.

I think your original shifting problem could have been corrected by adding a bit of tension to the front shift cable. It is normal for shift cables to stretch on new bikes. Dealers will usually do the first tune-up on a new bike at no charge. But it is good to learn to do your own maintenance.

Al

Rev.Chuck

Sora does not have a trim position

mrbc19

When I was trying to adjust the derailleur, at certain points there were 4 shift "clicks" in the shifter - so does that mean it does have a trim position?

Rev.Chuck

I need to correct myself, the ST-3303 does not have a trim position according to the Shimano lit. The ST-3300, for a double does have a trim. I did not have lit for the ST-3304 so I took a bike with one and it does seem to have a trim position between 1-2 but not between the 2-3. It also will not click into the is trim spot on the down shift.

You say you have a Sora der, do you also have a Sora shifter?

mrbc19

Yea the shifter is also Sora.

blickblocks

There are lots of threads about Sora shifter-FD issues. It's all caused by the lack of trim on the shifter itself. I think the best option is to get a Tiagra or 105 left hand shifter.

oilman_15106

You did not say if you can shift up to the big ring? If you can and the der. rubs against the ring even though you had it positioned correctly with the original proceedure, the cable tension is too slack. Start over and follow the Park proceedure, either from the Big Blue Book or online, exactly.

Lack of trim function on a Sora triple is a pain. Makes lots of gears unuable due to cross chaining and no way to correct it. Makes you wonder why the mfg. would ever put it on a bike.

Rev.Chuck

That is because they found many people will not spend the extra $100+ it cost to up to a nine speed drivetrain. The bigger question is, why does Shimano not make the Sora with trim? It might be moot. In another year or two, I expect to see the eight speed stuff fade away.