Hello, first time posting on a forum but I have used this a few times to help me repair bits and pieces on my bikes.


However, I have a problem with a bike I cant get to the bottom of or find a relevant thread about. My gears (11 speed ultegra) were working okay ready for my first race of the year in a few weeks, but I noticed my front derailleur was rubbing slightly when in my hardest gear (big cog on front and lowest gear of my rear cassette) so thought I would adjust the limit screws slightly to prevent the rub and annoying noise.


When I did this, I realised my limit screws didn't seem to be moving the derailleur at all. With the chain then on the inner ring and lowest gear, I tried to adjust and still nothing. I then made a decision to play with the cable tension which proved to be a big mistake. After disconnecting it, I tried the limit screws again and seemingly nothing happened. I then decided to move the limit screws back to their original position and reconnect the cable. However, I then realised that my shifter then would then not make the derailleur move at all. I'm probably doing something stupid, but the cable is seemingly a similar tension to before I disconnected it, but using the shifter seems to be having no effect at al on the derailleur, not moving even a smidge. Anybody come across this before? and any solution other than taking it to a bike shop? As funds are not at a good place at this moment in time!


Cheers

It sounds like the cable is caught somewhere. If you release the cable from the derailleur, hold on to it anywhere and shift the levers is the cable moving? If not then it's probably snagged on something in the brake/shifter lever somewhere. I'm not familiar with the ultegra shifters but I imagine you can pull back the rubber cover to take a peek inside and see what's going on.

Don't forget to make sure that you've shifted the lever to the lowest gear position before reattaching the cable. A bit of rubbing may be impossible to eliminate without the risk of the chain coming off but what you're describing certainly doesn't seem normal.

Also, you may have tensioning screws on the down-tube which will make your life easier.

John

Like what jgwilliams said, it sounds like you may still have the lever shifted into "2nd" gear (I.E. the large chainring position). This would cause it to not be able to complete a second upshift.

Your high limit screw doesn't move the derailleur outboard, it can only limit the outboard distance. This is why it didn't do anything when you adjusted it out. You would also need to increase the cable tension in order to move the derailleur further out. And in that regard, I have found that 11 speed Shimano FD's require a very high cable tension to function properly, like a REALLY high cable tension compared to older setups.

I would say follow the step by step instructions at si.shimano.com for your FD-6800 and it should be fine. If you still can't get it going then a FD adjust at your LBS shouldn't cost too much.

I found setting up the Ultegra front derailleur to be a major pain, and nothing at all like setting up a normal derailleur. You have to preload the cable with quite a bit of tension even in the unstressed position (F derailleur at small chainring.) I visited several websites including Shimano's to get enough advice to finally get mine to work.