condoruser

I've now completely abandoned derallier gears. I was getting only about 3,000 miles on the ultegra front shifter before it cracked, and even less mileage on the cassette shifter cable (shimano 105). I've been using an 8-speed sturmey hub gear for about 18 months now, the only issue I get is needing to replace the gear cable casing after about 1 year, an easy job.

pierce

in 40+ years of riding derailleur bikes, I've never worn out or cracked a front derailleur. sure, cables need periodic replacement. I did completely wear out a rear derailleur, a lovely old Suntour on a early 80s bike, after 20 years, the upper chain wheel completely wore off all its teeth so it wouldn't shift reliably any more, and of course, you can't get any parts for these.

oldbobcat

This is what always worked for me, although I never had on jammed as badly as the OP's. Sometimes I needed to slam it on the workbench a few times, though.

Funny thing is, after handling this on a couple dozen customers' bikes I swore I'd never let it happen on mine. Then the outer trim started getting a little hit-or-miss but I didn't think too much about it. Then I parted out the bike to replace the frame and found a couple broken strands of cable in the front shifter. It sneaks up on you.

masi7

This just happened to my left Shimano Ultegra STI which is almost 7 years old and 9400 miles from new. It took me a while to figure out that I could just grab the few strands of cable and use the small lever and click through it to expose the broken cable end. I'm glad I didn't have to drill any hole. Thanks for all the info! I now know I need to keep an eye on this.

letank

Drilled the hole... No strands left in my case... could not find the nipple... Removed the assembly as per instructions on this site. The nipple was loose. 20 years / 14000 km on the original cable for the rear derailleur, the front was replaced 2 years ago...

guide: repairing shimano rsx (a410) sti lever

https://www.bikeforums.net/archive/in.../t-886004.html

In the end, the question would be what is a good alternate replacement if the unit was fubar....? checking the on-line catalogs.... it ain't cheap in the $250 range.... and with 7 speed... it means a lot more expen$e$

bikebiketom

Great fix. After 300 miles of hard going I now have gears again. It breathes! Thank you.

Antieverything

Could you post pics for future reference? I've had the same issue and for mine the cable ended up falling out of the slot entirely. It luckily fell through the mechanism and eventually came out close to the bottom where I could tweeze it out.

maxpowers

Well that worked out! I was not gonna replace my my DA 7800 shifter without a fight, and with the cable end hopelessly jammed, it was time for surgery. cable end was first jammed near the lower hole then came loose and jammed again in a slot near the shifting mechanicals upper left.

forcefive

I snapped a cable in my RH Ultegra 6700 10 speed shifter. The cable head was frayed completely and I could not shift to the "neutral" position to remove it. I read a good description about drilling an access hole in this thread (including a few comments wishing Shimano would incorporate into future designs). Now I can report that they have incorporated something like an access port for snapped cables - a "second chance" to get it out.
I tried to rotate the cable barrel with all sorts of tools and grab the frayed ends with tweezers and eventually decided to completely pull back the rubber hood to see where to drill the hole. Then I noticed that there was already a hole in the appropriate place. I downshifted with the big lever until the lead cable-head came into view (easy in that direction). Moreover, the black plastic cover circled in the picture simply unhooks and slides forward providing ample access for tweezers. It is not even necessary to untape the bar.
I whipped out the old cable and stray bits of wire, threaded a new cable through the correct access hole at base of shifter, re-indexed and now it's fine.
With the later models of Shimano shifter (6700) this might be commonplace and obvious to everyone else, but it wasn't to me, just searching the internet. I got in a right sweaty mess!
I hope the picture helps someone:

potblak

What a great fix!
I had this problem a while ago and would've gone gray fixing it if I wasn't already.
My friend had the same problem this week and I just sent him your pics. He's happy and looking for drills!
The problem is actually not really a design flaw though; it's a cable fault.
Most of the cables offered these days are stainless steel and we are sold this as an advantage.
It isn't; because stainless steel has no yield point like carbon steel and stretches from the first day of use until it's final failure.
This is why you are always adjusting your derailleur cables!
Carbon steel doesn't stretch permanently provided it's yield point isn't exceeded; so galvanised cables will last longer than SS.
When they start to stretch you know it's time for a change.

rekmeyata

That's a great idea, so what brand carries carbon steel cables? NONE So we end up back at square one. The cycling industry will never go to carbon steel cables simply because it would last too long and thus your money is not being spent fast enough.

potblak

Look for 'Galvanised" cables. I managed to buy some last month. And they actually cost LESS than the SS ones. If we demand them; someone will offer them!

1986raleigh

Great outcome, moral of the story keep an eye on the cable, if it is starting to fray or come apart at that junction replace it before it breaks, save the grief.

rekmeyata

Interesting, but will the rust disadvantage of galvanised outweigh the stretch disadvantage of stainless in the long run? I ride in rain a lot so that could be an issue for me and others in rainy or even rainier climates then me, especially very humid areas like Florida.

I forgot too, is there any friction differences between the two?

potblak

The zinc coating prevents rusting as long as any zinc remains. It is a sacrificial corrosion preventer; also used on boats in marine environments.
Provided the cables are kept lubricated it is unlikely that any corrosion will happen even in a humid environment.
Lubrication and the zinc will keep friction pretty low: Probably lower than SS.

rekmeyata

This goes against everything I've ever read about the differences between the two, in fact the only places I could find that still sell galvanize, and correct me if I'm wrong, is the really cheap places like Walmart, so essentially what you're saying is that Walmart cables work better than say Dura Ace 9000 as one example? I could not find any high quality galvanize wire, please post who sells that.

Speaking of rust, zinc is only a coating, galvanize wire with the zinc coating will rust much faster than SS.

There was even a discussion about it here on this forum, see: https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-me...ter-cable.html

And according to a track racing forum galvanize wears out much faster than SS; see: Gear Cables - will galvanised do? « Singletrack Forum

Here is another discussion: What's the difference between galvanised brake cables versus stainless steel? - brakes - TechQues.com

And another: Stainless steel-v-galvanised steel cables | The Cycle Hub

You are going to have to offer some proof that galvanized is better than SS, because all the searching I did shows the exact opposite which is what I've always known as well, but science and technology is always changing so maybe someone has done something with galvanize that makes it now superior to SS, like I said please show us proof.

yarsec

I just wanted to reply and say how great the drilled extraction hole method works! I broken a cable end off in my 10 speed Ultegra 6600 rear shifter. The shifter would not shift at all and was stuck somewhere near the lowest (biggest cog) gear on the cassette. I drilled a 1/8" pilot hole, a quarter inch from the end of the cable groove slot, expanded the hole to 1/4" and the broken cable end was perfectly just sitting there, ready to be removed with a pair of small tweezers! Thank you so much for posting! Works great!

Mixtapeman

Dtbaker, you are a genius!! I'm not technically/mechanically gifted and I had to drill two holes!!! But, thanks to your pictures I spent an hour and .70p (for a new cable) and fixed the problem. I had a quote from the local bike shop of 'a minimum of £35, but likely to be nearer £75'. So, you saved my bike and my money!!!! Thanks.

Jlsturino

Thanks for posting. Worked great. I made a couple of modifications to the process.
- after drilling the pilot hole, I used a Dremel to file the hole to the exact right size. (This also avoided accidentally drilling into the mechanical parts inside the shifter because the Dremel had a rounded end)
- used a very strong magnet to suck the broken cable and remnants out. No Need for a bigger hole to get tweezers in.
- looking to buy a 1/4 chrome plug to fill the hole and avoid debris over time gunking things up.

aquasonix

Thanks again to dtbaker61 for the hole drill method, another success here today - around 2010 version 105 Flight Deck shifters. And replaced cable for front shifter too while at it. Like others, lost rear shifting while on a commute. After removing cable (except for that shifter end of course), seemed there could be a way to 'lock' the derailleur for a middle gear. Rummaged through the depths of the backpack and found a hair band from the girlfriend...actually thought it might be useful someday, and sure ain't too heavy to keep around. Manually positioned the derailleur to shift into the gear I wanted, derailleur will hold pretty close to same position when you stop pedaling, then wrapped with the band to hold the gear as shown in the attached pic. Maybe won't work for every derailleur shape, but worked like a charm on this Ultegra once I got a good tight wrap. And that's how the hills at both ends of the commute got done...keep a hair band or something like that in the flat kit and may do same for you someday!

crankshaftvw

Thanks to everyone who suggested the extraction hole. Worked perfectly.

crankshaftvw

I followed these instructions and it worked perfectly.
Nice one dtbaker61.

rydabent

IMO it is extremely poor engineering to design a brake or shifter that the cable cant easily be replaced by anyone!!!!!! Any head engineer of any company that signed off on such a design should be fired.

Hypatia

I had the last 2cm of cable, with cable head attached, jammed in the shifter. But I must have the next shifter model up, since there was a screw (Phillips head) on the side of the shifter which allowed a small panel of plastic casing to be removed. The offending cable head was right underneath, and I could lever it out with the pointy end of a pair of pliers.

Pulling at the frayed strands of cable via the cable head hole was of absolutely no use.

It seems like the design of the shifters is improving over time.

walksomemore

Another Fan!!! I had the same thing happen to my 7800 rear-shift sti, and after 2 days of tinkering and trying to read the alleged tech instructions, I stumbled across this thread. And Voila!! 10 min later, I have a shifter that actually has its original 3-click downshift, and a shiny new access port! (and the extra bucks I'd've had to spend to replace)....

Hat tip!!