Bike Forums - Stupid LX rear deraillieur.

While on a longer descent today, decided to shift to the 11 tooth and hammer it the rest of the way down. Once I begin to to hammer, then I get all kinds of skipping. Once back to the car, I to take a look at what's going on and notice that the jockey arm is where it should be when it's in the granny gear instead of where it should be on the 11 tooth and a ton of slack in the chain. Sure enough the spring that tensions the jockey arm is broken. Only deraillieur I have laying around is that old xtr deraillieur I used when I had the bike set as a 3 speed that needed a new pinch plate and bolt. Good news bolt and pinch plate work on the xtr. The bad news, the deraillieur is a short cage. Not supposed to use a short cage deraillieur on an 11/34 cassette.

Which is no big deal, I never really used the highest 3 cogs on the cassette, and it would give me the chance to modify the drivetrain and to finally use my new chainwhip. Last time I made a 3 speed out of it, for this time around, I decided to make it a 6 speed.

What I had to do, besides take the cassette off.

1: Break apart the cassette. The cassette I had was pinned, so took out my trust hacksaw and cut the pins, allowing the cogs to be removed easily. Then saved all the spacers, except the one I cut through when cutting the rivets. Life would have been easier to have gotten a bunch of loose cogs, but I decided to make due with what I had.

2: Figure out the spacing. In between the cogs that are being used is easy, just have to figure out the spacing to fill in the missing 3 cogs. Used the spacers from the cassette.

3: Put the cogs I wanted on, the smaller 6. Then tightened the lockring.

4: Put wheel on bike and cut chain to compromise the loss of 3 speeds and the switch to a short cage deraillieur and connect the chain.

5: Adjust the rear deraillieur and lock out the clicks that would bring it onto the missing cogs. In my case the 3 easier cogs.

6: Test ride it to make sure everything shifts properly when under load.

The final result:
http://i423.photobucket.com/albums/p...0/100_2750.jpg