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Maintaining shifters
Hi all. Was hoping some people would help me with a question...
Typically I maintain my bike by hosing it down with a fine, low-pressure mist spray from the garden hose followed by towel drying and then lubrication of all relevant parts. I am pretty thorough to make sure lube is applied anywhere and everywhere that needs it to prevent moisture hanging around and any corrosion. I do cleats, headset, rear mech, cables, chain of course, etc etc.
What about my shifter?? A sram 9 i think (giant reign 2008). (a) how do you make sure no water/moisture is left inside that component; and (b) what's the best way you've found to do it - because there ain't no easy entry to that tightly packaged thing!
many thanks in advance,
Mark.
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I may get shouted down but WD40. Works a treat.
No doubting its water repelling properties and i use it on my pedals for exactly that reason. But anti-wear lube it is not. It tends to evaporate quite quickly. Nulon has a silicon spray lube that i think would be much better, but for the moving bits in my similar vintage XT shifters i find the best results from a match-head sized daub of white lithium grease on the sliding surfaces.
With a soft hose spray i don't get any moisture in there or my son's X9 shifters ever... have you seen water in there?
Cracked cover maybe?
I use this stuff on my pedals, derailleur, etc.
http://www.inox-mx3.com/inox.htm
It doesn't evaporate or go sticky and attract dirt like wd40 and is available from Bunnings for about $10 a can.
for Inox, use it on pivot bearings as well
INOX is the shizznit
I use Wurth Maintainance spray on my shifters. It's similar to WD and Inox, but better. I also use it on all bearing/pivot points on the frame and my derailleurs.
PLEASE don't use dry chain lube. I'm sick to hell of cleaning this crap out of other people's seized shifters.
WD40 works fine as long as you use it OFTEN (like fortnightly). Silicon spray doesn't seem to penetrate as well, but it's not too bad.
thanks for all the constructive thoughts guys. much appreciated. Inox is the bees knees so I went for that. The challenge was how to get it in there, but I put the fine nozzle on and found a gap. Or do you guys open the shifter up to take a look inside and maintain?
Anyway, my spray seems to have helped it along.
If you open up a shifter, you will usually see a light white grease and no oil .
Therefore not a bad method is to use something like wd40 silicon inox to clean it up if there is quite a bit of grit in there, let it dry out overnight, then smear light grease where there was light grease before.
Spraying a solvent like product in there will remove the grease which is there for a reason.
good advice. maybe I should have left it alone. and let the grease stay there. but surely the grease is gone after 5 years of riding the bike and washing afterwards. I'll have to investigate opening up the shifter. is this difficult? I have heard that opening a shifter can be fraught with danger - spring pops out straight away or something?
The X9s i have, have an easily removable cover with a single centre thumb nut/screw thingy in the middle to secure it. Just make sure you have safety glasses on as these now feature the latest middle eastern IED exploding device technology so that small metal parts fly out upon opening never to be found again. [kidding]
If yours are this model, removing the cover is fine and you'll be able to apply grease and change cables but i'd go no further trying to disassemble.
Lol hawkeye, or we'll end up with a 100 post thread on trying to put it back together , and how sram couldn't design a cardboard box without making it complicated and dysfunctional
Is white lithium spray grease a better option or too thick?
yeah I got x5's, not sure i'll have the luxury you talk about with x9's hawkeye. anyone done x5's??
Sorry i misread. X5s.... I'd definitely wear the safety glasses then.
Assembled by robots apparently and not meant to be maintained by humans
For years I have cleaned my bike and other using car wash and wax, (the silicones in the product protect your cars paintwork is also great for the bike)
Then I spray the bike frame and other none moving parts with dry silicon spray (prevents water and mud sticking to parts) and makes washing off muck much easier.
Then I use wet silicon spray for all other moving parts, chain, shifters etc.
All this is very cheap from repco, so I use plenty of it. Sometimes you can pick up the silcon for as little as $3.00 a can if you shop around, and it goes a long way.