Sticky left brifter
 

After a year of flawless use, the left downshift lever on my DA10 brifter is sticking. When I upshift (to the big ring) by pushing the brifter lever to the inside, the inner lever remains at the inward position when the outer metal lever returns to it's normal position.

Any thoughts? Will grease or graphite remedy the problem (if so, where)? I note that I don't recall this happening until after my bike was rained on.

If it was Campy you could rebuild it. :D Sorry had to go there...don't have a clue to your issue but shoot some WD40 or better yet Boeshield in there and see what happens.

yeah, wd40 or tech 2000. If your really worrie, take it apart and grease it up.

My old DA8 left brifter started doing that too. In my case, it did it forever, eventually taking multiple shifts to drop down to the small ring. Hope you have better luck than I did.

Well little random check first, but have you check to make sure the housing is ok? Its sounds a bit more extreme but sometimes the steel (?) threads in the housing end up in the body of the shifter and gum things up, but can be pulled out...

yeah, be sure to check everything all the way down to the front derailluer. but spray wd40 and let it settle in...you may want to turn the bike sideways or unsidedown to let the stuff get in there.

Don't use WD-40, you want a lube, NOT a penetrant. Try Tri-flow or another chain lube that comes in a spray bottle. Stick the little plastic straw into the internals of the shifter and hose it down really well. Then click the upshift and downshift levers repeatedly, sometimes stopping to spray more lube. It takes a while, but it'll clean out the shifter while lubing all the little metal pieces.

Seconding the recommendation for tri-flow or similar penetrant. I've freed up many sticky brifters this way. Soak it good and go ride and it should loosen up whatever is gumming it up. Oh yeah I did have one time where the problem turned out to be a badly frayed cable but that should be obvious when you start pulling stuff off to get the penetrant in there.

Also seconding the recommendation not to use WD-40, it will evaporate and gum everything back up. Since you're OCP you'll appreciate my personal favorite of Starrett tool oil (used on micrometers and such, I like to call it synthetic whale oil) as a great lubricant for precision fiddly items. You can get it at MSC, Enco and anywhere that sells precision measuring tools. Use tri-flo or similar to free it up, hit it with the Starrett to keep it working well.

http://catalog.starrett.com/catalog/...sp?groupid=506

Lastly DO NOT DISASSEMBLE YOUR SHIMANO BRIFTERS! If they're anything like their rapidfire MTB shifters you will be in for a nice weekend of tearing your hair out followed by years of crappy shifting. If you do it anyways do it in a well lit, perfectly clean, otherwise empty room painted pure white so you can find the tiny little bits that'll go flying. Preferably do it naked to avoid losing parts in your clothes. In fact shave your body hairless as well.

Good luck!

Ray

Hmm, is the brifter still under warranty? I think you get a 2-yr warranty from Shimano, so maybe you can get a new one.