Frugal Freud

Hello all,
I am an aspiring home bicycle mechanic. I love to ride, but hate paying $40 for a tune up when I feel I should probably learn how to do it myself. My current project is a mid 90s (?) Peugeot solid fork mountain bike that I am turning into a tourer/city rider for my wife. So far it has gone great. I removed the rear derailleur to clean and oil it. Also removed the freehub and cleaned the dirty gear cluster. Cleaned and repacked front and rear bearings. Added new tires and fenders. Now I am stuck at derailleur adjustment.
All of the articles and videos I've seen seem to assume your system already shifts mostly as you want, and are directed towards more fine tuning. My problem is I've just put the rear derailleur back on, and I can't even get it to shift using the shift levers. I've tried tightening/loosening the cables, even completely opening up both high and low limit stops, it seems like it will just find one gear and not want to move. As you can see, I'm all over the place with this one. Does anyone know of a "baseline setting" I could do for cable tension, high and low limit stops, and b tension? I feel if I could just start with them remotely near wherever they are supposed to be, I could get somewhere with this. Last time I tried to tune a derailleur it ended up in the shop. Sorry for the long post, any advice is much appreciated.
PS Exage 500 LX front and rear

fietsbob

limit screws stop the pulley under the cog on either high or low-side..

do that before you attach the cable..

rdtompki

The Park and Sheldon Brown websites provide from-scratch instruction.

Frugal Freud

Thanks much, I will give it a try!

dsbrantjr

As suggested use the Park Tool or Sheldon Brown procedures; I prefer Park's explanation myself:
https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-...nts-derailleur
https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-...ur-adjustments
Whichever you use start right at the beginning and DO NOT skip any steps as each adjustment depends to some extent on the previous step being done correctly. It is important that at the beginning you set the shifters (whatever type you have) to have released all of the cable that they have taken up. It is also important that the shift cables move freely and easily. If any of the cables or housings are not in good condition, remedy that first. Pay special attention to the final loop of cable that enters the rear derailleur, it is often damaged or jammed with dirt or rust. Park and Sheldon also have instruction on cable and housing installation, a poor installation is often the cause of shifting problems down the road, so to speak. Also make sure that the shifters pull and release cable properly and smoothly. You can do this right, just take your time and be patient and methodical.

FBinNY 

The most critical adjustment is the low gear or inner limit screw. any other mis-adjustment will only make the system work poorly or maybe not at all, but a mis-adjusted inner limit can (and probably will) cause serious damage.

Many people set and test the limit adjustment using the shift lever, but this is inadequate because the lever will only pull the cable to a point and may not find the true limit. Confirm that the limit is set OK by either pushing the lower RD body in while pedaling, or as I prefer, by pulling the wire away from the frame like a bow string. I also use the bowstring method to set the high gear limit.

Bill Kapaun

My "baseline" adjustment for a RDER starts before I connect the cable.
Set the high limit screw so that the chain doesn't come off the smallest cog.