I'm installing a set of band-clamp Suntour Symmetric shifters on the '17 Raleigh, and, since I've never used them before, is there anything weird about setting them up, or do they adjust like other downtube levers? I did notice the channel routing, and the slot in the lever that makes threading the cables around and into the groove much easier... kinda like slotted brake levers.

Other than having to use brake housing to fit the housing stops, any other gotchas with either shifters or frame?

Thanks,

--Shannon

Make sure they are lubed well, and do a movement test before installing cables. That is, ensure that when you pull the lever for the rear shifter up, the whole lever assembly for the front shifter moves as if it is sliding down the downtube. These can easily be reassembled 180 degrees wrong, in which case the auto trim will move the front derailleur in the wrong direction. It's a brilliant design, but can be finicky to set up. Don't use a late model Superbe Pro front derailleur with these, as the cages seem to be narrower and you'll wind up trimming your derailleur anyway.
Phil

Test your wits - Suntour Symmetric reassembly challenge! With pics!

Should tell you more than you ever wanted to know. They do indeed work pretty well with a double crank or the first and second rings of a triple.

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Got the Symmetric instaled this morning.

If t'were done at all, t'were best done very slowly. Especially the part where it worked anti-symmetrically. Not having a Spirt front derailleur handy, I commenced to the reversing of the motion.

...Two hours later...

Well, not really, but almost. Two things, other than my general ineptitude, door vision, and low DEX, contributed to the extensive faffing about. First, lots of small and nearly-identical parts, which have to go in in a particular order. And second, the exploded diagram is backwards from the way you (for which read "I") hold the lever while you're (I was) working on it.

I didn't notice the last bit until two or three failures into the process.

Then the setup, which, other than starting with the rear shifted onto the big cog, was refreshingly easy.

Which leads to a different question:

What might cause skip downshifts to the middle 2 cogs? The 5 -> 4 is fine, nails it every time. So's the 2 -> 1, but that's shifting into the stop, so it kinda has to work. There's a barrel adjuster on the RD, but I don't know how to use it in a friction setup. (With indexing, it's easy... middle click, middle cog, center jockey wheel, done.) The Symmetrics do less of this than the 600s did, ditto for the V-GT Luxe vs the 600. Is it just a matter of me learning the bike more, or is there a setup / adjustment issue at play?

--Shannon

Did you already check the RD Hangar alignment?

Sounds a little like your rear derailleur hanger is bent or your derailleur itself is worn and moving the chain in an arc instead of in a linear motion.
Phil

RD hanger me no checkee. Will do so at some point. It's not terrible as it is, and I'd live with it for a while rather than recable the bike.

Speaking of which...

I think I put the front lever back together wrong, after I got it to move in the right direction. It's got no resistance to the spring at all, and the screw is tight. (It's also kinda buggered around the edges of the Allen socket, so I don't want to mess with it more than I have to.)

Anyone had this happen to them, and what was the problem?

The rear lever is fantastic... if I can get the front dialed in, I think I've found my shift levers.

--Shannon

If you want a Spirt derailleur, PM me. Pretty sure I have one.

Thanks for the generous offer, but it's not necessary. The problem's definitely in the lever. I'm think that I put one of the washers or cam-stop-thingies in backwards or in the wrong place. I'll tackle it tomorrow.

ETA:
In case I wasn't clear, my pair came set up for a high-normal FD. I took the left shifter off of the assembly housing to reverse the cam. After several failed attempts at getting the stack of washers and shaped bits and such back in the right order, I had the shifter moving in the right direction and turning on it's boss. It's acting like a friction lever with a loose D-ring, but the mounting bolt is fully tight. (Also, it seems to have no effect on lever tension, and just holds everything together. Another sign that I may have assembled it wrong.)

--Shannon

This is how I set my symmetric shifters up on my old Miyata 1200, and the trim function always was perfect.

That's the post I followed, and it's good dope. The front trimming works great. The front shifting on the other hand, (or same hand...) only works until you let go of the lever. Granted, it works great until then... and even better on the immediate downshift that follows.

To be clear: Everything works except that the front shifter has no friction. None. When I shift up to the big ring, it shifts fine, grabs the ring, no worries. Then, as soon as I let go of the lever, the front derailleur snaps back down, the lever goes fully forward, and I'm back on the small ring again.

For a normal shift lever, the obvious cause would be the d-ring mounting screw being loose. But the mounting bolt is tight against the central body, and there's no resistance at the lever. Which is why I think I screwed something up when I reversed the cam so that the trimming would work with my normal front derailleur. (It came to me set up for a high-normal.)

I hope that makes more sense.

--Shannon

Ah! I see now. I think the simplest answer is unforunately to just get a new one from everything I've read about overhauling these shifters Luckily there are still NOS examples being unearthed from hoardes and old warehouses, as well as ones hardly used.

Yeah, I'm beginning to think that something internal is borked. So long as the braze-on ones can be screwed onto the band clamp for the clamp-on ones, I should be OK. The non-clamp ones are easy to find in the co-op bins.

Fortunately for me, I'm having a bunch of teeth pulled on Friday, so I won't be needing a big ring for a while...

--Shannon

I have two extra sets of Symmetrics. Let me know if you need some of the bits or a whole unit.
Phil

Thanks, Phil!

I think I maybe remember seeing several sets without band clamps in the bin at the co-op when I was looking for a clamp-on set last weekend. If I'm wrong about that, I'll probably hit you up. Like I said, I already like them a lot, and am going to keep them on the bike.

--Shannon

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see why "reversing the cam" could be expected to reverse the action of the front derailleur. Wouldn't the best solution likely be to replace the front derailleur with a compatible one?

Reversing the cam would have (I dunno in reality, just an assumption we're all working on in this thread) allowed Shannon to use a regular (low-normal) front derailleur. Because when swapping the high-normal for a low-normal front derailleur, the derailleur would be moved by the automatic symmetric trim function in the opposite direction, an incorrect direction relative to the chain when shifting the rear derailleur. Does that make sense? I feel like I didn't explain it very well.

Why do you want to use these shifters? I mean, would others suffice?

If you've never tried them, I recommend setting up a bike with some. I've never felt so in-tune with my friction shifting. As nice as ratchet friction is, there is play between each step of the ratchet. And most simplex retrofriction shifters are old and used enough at this point that they also have a tiny bit of play between the position that you pull to and the position that they relax into after letting go of the lever. The symmetric shifters I've used are resolute in their position, which I really like for friction. You move the lever, and there it goes exactly where you want. I found that I developed really accurate muscle memory for single, double, and triple shifts that I haven't been able to as easily with other friction shifters.

My only gripe is that they're hard to use with half-frame top tube bags.

As to the Reversal of the Trim, that's kinda how this all started. I attempted it, apparently succesfully. The front lever mount moves in the same direction as the rear lever is shifted, which is correct for a (low-) normal front derailleur. This does not require taking the internals of the "pod" apart, which is terrifying to me and I didn't try it.

I was hoping for someone to say, "I had this happen to me, and it turned out that I had swapped part X for part W. Plus I had part Q in backwards." But, alas, t'were not to be. S'ok... sometimes laziness pays off, but you usually end up painting your own fence.

I'm going to be laid up for a bit after tomorrow, so I'll try to fix it. If I'm right, and I installed some or all of the stack of plates, washers, and other weirdo fiddly bits backwards, upside down, in the wrong order, or any or all of those failure modes, I'll let everyone know. If not, I'll probably put the 600s back on for now, because I already have them and I'm broke.

And I'll second Piff on the shift feel of these things. It's fantastic. Almost as smooth as the Retrofriction, and they pull more cable, so they're almost as positive as the Sprint / Riv / Dia Compe micro-ratchets. The only downside is the weirdo mounting. (Which I grok... the two levers need to talk to each other for the things to work, and they can't if there's a downtube in the way.)*

--Shannon

* And the gnomes just handed up another Bad Idea from the Cave. An adapter that fits standard downtube shifter braze-ons on the sides, with a little "hat" on top for the Symmetric pod to screw down on top of. And now all of the thousands of the things cluttering up co-op bins all over the country can finally find their forever homes, on bikes that will appreciate them. (As with most of my ideas, I am totally unqualified to implement this one.)

Wishing you the best of luck, an absolutely perfect result, no pain, and a miraculously quick and full recovery!

neil0502 Thanks, homie!

--Shannon

Welp, it's official.

I'm an idiot.



Well, there's yer problem!

It turns out that, if the cable pops out of it's hole and into the slot, it can dive between the lever and the boss, making the mounting bolt feel tighter than it is. With no compression, the lever can't fight the FD return spring. The crazy thing is that this actually pulled enough cable to upshift the front derailleur.

Slack cable. Pull cable head through notch and into hole. Tighten mounting screw. Adjust cable tension as per previous thread. Shift bike. Ride bike. Use 8 of 10 gears. (Well, technically 7... I didn't hit the 52/14. But I could have.)

Interesting side effect: I think the back-pressure of the front cable on the trimming mechanism makes the rear shift better.

Thanks to all who offered advice, commiseration, and parts. Anybody got some stupidity-preventing brain lube?

--Shannon

I have now added these shifters to my “must try” list, thank you everyone.

Wow, I learned a few things. I really enjoy your writing style. I hope your procedure goes miraculously well. I have terrible dentist-chair fear.