Soliciting thoughts on upgrades
 

I'm looking for thoughts and wisdom on upgrading derailleurs. Here's where I am at: I have a Specialized Crossroads Hybrid. The derailleurs currently on it are Shimano Tourneys. The front derailleur works fine. The rear is another story. So basically I am going to upgrade. I currently have a Vuelta 3 ring crank set, a Shimano 7 speed freewheel, 13-28 (an upgrade from the original Shimano with 13-34 gearing), and a Shimano chain. The freewheel and chain were replaced at the same time. The shifters are Shimano Rapid Fire, an upgrade from the grip shifters that came on the bike. My riding is 99% road and multi-use trail. extreme off road or anything like that.

So... I am looking to upgrade rear and front derailleurs, and have the following options available to me:

1. Shimano Deore. This is a 9 speed derailleur, and I've heard different opinions on whether or not it will work with my 7 speed freewheel.

2. Shimano Claris. I can get a good deal on a new front and rear.

3. Shimano Alivio.

Any thoughts and opinions would be appreciated.

All three should work with your 7-sp. Though the Deore is specified as a 9-sp, it ought to work with 8 or 7 as well. With a triple you are going to need a long cage RD, so I don't know if the Claris is going to work for you. Deore and Alivio should work fine with triple.

Claris front won't work with your left shifter. The rest should work.

Have you diagnosed the problem in the rear? Derailleurs are pretty simple, just a lever and a spring, and a lot of time shifting problems are in the shifter or the cable or the adjustment

For weight savings, Shimano designed a stress riser into their RD bracket just above the top rear pivot to beat Campy on weight in the 70s.
this design has followed since on every Shimano RD.
They have cracked from the 300 right up to recent Tiagra on high-mileage derailleurs. It almost certainly requires inopportune dirt in the casting as well.
But getting a higher-grade metallurgy is probably smart.
I'd go with the Deore.

It will shift 7 just fine - my buddy's daughter has a 10s 105 RD shifting 6sp SIS.
(her original RD had the same crack)

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...SURY%5B1-25%5D

https://www.flickr.com/photos/535460...n/photostream/

If you want to see the difference, here's the rear view of a 1978 Shimano 600EX (equivalent to Ultegra)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7..._aP5190022.jpg
look at the reduced section between the frame attachment bolt and the derailleur parallelogram

Here's the rear view of a 1981 SunTour, which looks the same as current Campagnolo (also Microshift, Sun XCD).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...9e13ed1d6e.jpg
and yes, they're all heavier than Shimano by 20g or so.

I thought that all MTB & road bike derailleurs would work with whatever shifters, until you got to 10-speed (or 9?).

I've had road shifters with tourney and lower, and claris derailleurs. Maybe the other way around, the trigger shifters are different, but am I wrong that the pull ratio is the same on 7 and 8 speed road and mtb components? In that case it would work if the DR total capacity is enough.

I'm pretty sure Dura Ace is the exception, and all other Shimano index from 6sp to 10s is the same cable pull

My buddy's daughter is using this 105 RD with 6-sp SIS

Whenever I'm confronted with a rear shifting issue that doesn't respond to normal cable tension tuning, the first thing that I do is to check the derailleur hanger alignment. Most times that fixes it. Hangers are easily bent so an out-of-alignment hanger is a common problem. If the hanger isn't right, it doesn't matter how much money you spend on a replacement derailleur, it isn't going to work satisfactory.

derailleur hangar was my thought too. I have a low-end Shimano derailleur on one of my bikes, and it works fine on a 9 speed system. Just have to make sure the hanger is straight. Either buy a hanger alignment tool or get a bike shop to check it for you. I've always been a big fan of the low-end Shimano rear derailleurs, at least their shifting.

Thanks for the input, guys! For those who mentioned it, I've had a bike shop check it out, the derailleur hanger is fine. Two other mechanics have stroked their chins (metaphorically) and basically ran through a list of "maybe it's...." Whatever. When I bought the bike I did so with an eye to making it a project and upgrading things on it. I'm one of those old-school cyclists who learned what I know in the 70s, and that's just what we did. Upgrade. (I won't go into the drilling things out part!).

So basically I have a derailleur that shifts sloppily at inopportune times, and requires readjustment on a weekly basis.. Not looking for repair advice. Just input on which derailleur would make the best upgrade. I'm still working my way through the "what works with what and why it won't work with (fill in the blank)" ideas. The last bike I put together was in 1978, and my Campy RD worked fine an Atom freewheel, SR crank, Sedis chain, and Zeus FD and shifters. But, those days are but history, and I do like index shifting.... so I am compelled to ask questions and spend time scratching my head.

It doesn't have to be over - I've build all my bikes just the way I want them.

I just finished up a Raleigh International - moved the drivetrain and cockpit from all the upgrades on my 40-yr Grand Prix. Friction shifting a wide-7 rear on bar-ends, Phil freewheel hub wheelset, Cyclone GT RD, cyclotouriste triple and Shimano 600 EX FD. The bar-end shifters are my old Zeus downtube levers in Rivendell (Diacompe Ene) bar end pods. Zeus road brake levers on moustache bars.

Built up a CX frame as an upright with 2x9 wide compact double - index thumb shifters.

My road bike has 20-naughties Campy drivetrain but with C-Record friction DT Shifters, 8sp Record cassette, Cinelli 64 compact drops, Modolo non-aero brake levers.

None of it makes sense to anybody but me, and that's fine.

Now that's what I'm talking about! My first "real" bike as a Raleigh Grand Prix. By the time I was done tinkering and swapping parts and just plain playing around, it was a great bike! One of these days I would like to pick up a classic ten speed and re-build it. And I shall do just that. But for now, getting my daily rider the way I want it and running like a fine watch is what I am working on. Slowly working on, anyhow. lol.

I'll show it then, here was my 40-y-o Grand Prix (bought it new in college and rebuilt it 3 times along the way)
Was still riding it 1500 mi/year - at least once/wk
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7.../aP5280023.jpg

This was the 80/90s version, Shimano 600 EX derailleurs, Might Comp crank, Zeus/Rigida wheelset
(definitely the 90s saddle - was on suede Unicanitor when I was younger)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...aleigh/gp1.jpg

And here's the International after I moved everything over. I had to buy 3 parts to finish the International, and I sold my rear rack and panniers to pay for half of the International frame (already had the shorty fenders stashed). (Kept all my good Honjo hardware and may buy new fender blanks down the way)
The GP was just as fast as this bike, but this bike is quicker...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...aPB180001b.jpg

Beautiful bikes! Looking at the photos brings back a lot of memories. Ride safely!

thanks, and good luck with your project.

With the exception of some Dura Ace parts, all Shimano indexing road and MTB rear derailleurs are compatible up through 9-speed. Then Shimano introduced a new cable pull ratio with 10-speed DynaSys MTB parts, which no longer matched road bike parts.

Front derailleurs and shifters, however, are a different story. Shimano road and MTB fronts have historically had two different pull ratios.

Not wanting to be difficult, but are you sure the derailleur is the problem ? Could be. But If it's not, then the problem will remain no matter what derailleur you use.

Stick with mountain groups, so Claris is out as it is a road derailleur.

There really is no point in going with a 9 speed derailleur unless you actually want to upgrade to 9 speed. Altus or Acera should be fine. Altus is designed for 7/8 speeds, and the price is right. Acera will also work well with 7 speed shifters. Price is fairly reasonable.

IMO, going any higher gets you no better function, just bling.

Put a Deore long cage RD on it. That will fix it.

So what did the bike shop do to determine the derailleur hanger was "fine"? Here's a quick, no-cost way to check for yourself:

1. Shift into a gear combination that makes your derailleur arm point downward.
2. Stand your bike against something so that it's vertical.
3. Look at your derailleur from the back. The arm should be vertical. If the arm seems to be pointing toward your rear wheel - that's it.

Even if that's not the problem (and I'll admit that it might not be), it's ALWAYS worth the effort to eliminate a wonky derailleur hanger as a possibility. I hate buying replacement parts before I figure out what's causing the problem.

A Park dropout alignment tool was used. Everything has been checked, really. I replaced the cable and housing, as well as the freewheel, chain, and shifters myself. Bike shop double checked my adjustments. A different bike shop tried to sell me a new bike.... lol. I did dump the bike a while back and it's been suggested that perhaps something in the derailleur itself got knocked out of whack. But being that it's about the lowest derailleur on Shimano's food chain, as well as quite cheap, I just would rather move on with my plans to upgrade it and pedal on.

It makes sense, but don't go crazy. Entry level bikes have entry level components on them for a reason. And upgrading one component, derailleurs, from entry level to a performance oriented model won't change your shifting all that much. You still have a 7 speed freewheel, rather than a freehub, and, presumably, entry level 7 speed shifters. Though you describe the change in freewheel and shifters as an upgrade, IMO they were more a personal thing (a narrower range of gears and push button shifting rather than grip shifting).

Unless you upgrade the entire drivetrain from 7 speed to 9 speed, including shifters, freehub, chain, cassette, and possibly back wheel, you won't get better shifting performance going above Altus or Acera rear derailleur. As for the front, I would leave it as is as most people don't use the front derailleur as much as the back derailleur anyway and from what I have experienced, the Tourney front derailleur isn't that bad.