Rear derailleur issues

Tim

aka sptimmy43
I am having an iissue with my rear derailleur. The bike is 1x11 with an SLX derailleur, XT shifter and a e*13 9-46t cassette. The chain is nearly brand new as I just replaced it. I noticed that recently my shift quality was deteriorating a bit and certain gears were a bit noisy (middle of the cassette) and going from 11th to 10th (small/hard gears) and vice versa is not reliable. Sometimes the bike shifts, sometimes it doesn't. It goes up and down the rest of the cassette smooth as silk. I am pretty meticulous with keeping a clean bike and a thorough cleaning and lube job didn't take care of the issue. At first I thought the hanger was bent as the mis-shifts only happen on 2 gears. I replaced it with a spare I had as I don't have a derailleur hanger alignment tool. The new hanger made no improvement. So I replaced the inner and outer shift cable (curse the bastard who invented inner cable routing, by the way). The new cable did not fix anything, either. I am thinking the derailleur itself must be damaged. It visually looks fine and I assume the original hanger was ok but something isn't right.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any insight.
 

michael.su

JORBA Board Member/Chapter Leader
JORBA.ORG
I am having an iissue with my rear derailleur. The bike is 1x11 with an SLX derailleur, XT shifter and a e*13 9-46t cassette. The chain is nearly brand new as I just replaced it. I noticed that recently my shift quality was deteriorating a bit and certain gears were a bit noisy (middle of the cassette) and going from 11th to 10th (small/hard gears) and vice versa is not reliable. Sometimes the bike shifts, sometimes it doesn't. It goes up and down the rest of the cassette smooth as silk. I am pretty meticulous with keeping a clean bike and a thorough cleaning and lube job didn't take care of the issue. At first I thought the hanger was bent as the mis-shifts only happen on 2 gears. I replaced it with a spare I had as I don't have a derailleur hanger alignment tool. The new hanger made no improvement. So I replaced the inner and outer shift cable (curse the bastard who invented inner cable routing, by the way). The new cable did not fix anything, either. I am thinking the derailleur itself must be damaged. It visually looks fine and I assume the original hanger was ok but something isn't right.

Anyway, I'd appreciate any insight.
How many miles are on the cassette?
Maybe it's worn/bent etc?

The derailleur cage could be a little tweaked. I usually eyeball the chain line and adjust accordingly.

Bolting a new hanger on doesn't guarantee that it's aligned. Best to check with an alignment tool.
 

Aresab310

formerly RSabarese
If your profile is correct you may be local to me and if so you can come by, I'd be happy to check your hanger with my Park dag 2.2. If interested PM me.
 

Tim

aka sptimmy43
How many miles are on the cassette?
Maybe it's worn/bent etc?

The derailleur cage could be a little tweaked. I usually eyeball the chain line and adjust accordingly.

Bolting a new hanger on doesn't guarantee that it's aligned. Best to check with an alignment tool.

The cassette has 488 miles on it. t doesn't seem to be excessively worn or bent. The chainline looks good by my eye.

I have heard that brand new derailleur hangers are not true something like 25% of the time. I may need to hit up @RSabarese or pony up for the DAG tool myself.
a) fire
2) new bike
iii) LBS

that's all I got.....
a) Pretty sure I didn't have a fire...but maybe I should.:mad:
2) Unless I have a fire and get some insurance $$$ a new bike will result in divorce at this particular moment.:eek:
iii) Not sure how many bike shops want me to roll in with my YT...again, fire may help.:p
 

Karate Monkey

Well-Known Member
I have heard that brand new derailleur hangers are not true something like 25% of the time. I may need to hit up @RSabarese or pony up for the DAG tool myself.

The hangers are perfectly straight, it's the frames that are slightly out, and the hanger needs to be tweaked for.

#youcanthandlethetruth
 
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Tim

aka sptimmy43

The bike has an XD free hub body on it.

YT really sold the Frankenstein e*13/Shimano drive train as having more range, being more reliable, and being easier to adjust than Eagle and I drank the Kool-Aid but since I already have an XD free hub I will probably just grab some GX Eagle components if this persists or when cassette wears out.
 

Juggernaut

Master of the Metaphor
How stretched was the old chain? I’m guessing it was pretty worn and the couple of troublesome gears are the ones you use the most..... maybe time for a new cassette. Assuming the free hub body isn’t a little loose that is.
 

Steve Vai

Endurance Guy: Tolerates most of us.
The bike has an XD free hub body on it.

YT really sold the Frankenstein e*13/Shimano drive train as having more range, being more reliable, and being easier to adjust than Eagle and I drank the Kool-Aid but since I already have an XD free hub I will probably just grab some GX Eagle components if this persists or when cassette wears out.

Someone I know (me) just happens to have a GX Eagle group sitting around.
 

Tim

aka sptimmy43
How stretched was the old chain? I’m guessing it was pretty worn and the couple of troublesome gears are the ones you use the most..... maybe time for a new cassette. Assuming the free hub body isn’t a little loose that is.

I replaced the chain right at .5% stretch. I am pretty sure it isn't cassette wear as this is occurring on the 9 and 10 tooth cogs. I wish I could say I use those the most but the truth is I am just way too slow.
Someone I know (me) just happens to have a GX Eagle group sitting around.

I saw that you took the GX Eagle off your bike in your thread. What was the problem? Derailleur cage was too long?
 

terrabike01

Well-Known Member
I've been seeing issues with those E13 cassettes. The gap where the 2 halves come together have inconsistent tolerance and the derailleur skips around on 1 half or the other. Replace with a Sram.
I think I might have to 2nd this! Rode the bike today and it's still skipping around. But feathering the shifter seems to help a lot!
 

teabagger11

Well-Known Member
had same set up on my krampus the only thing that fixed it was getting a new cassette, i'm assuming with the tight cog spacing it doesn't take much to cause shifting issues
 

Tim

aka sptimmy43
So it turns out the derailleur itself was bent. I ordered a new one for giggles since that was way cheaper than a new cassette or group set at this point and the cage on the old one was way out of whack compared to the new one. I haven’t looked at it much closer to see what exactly is bent but a new one fixed the problem entirely. I now have silky smooth shifting across all 11 gears.
 

terrabike01

Well-Known Member
So it turns out the derailleur itself was bent. I ordered a new one for giggles since that was way cheaper than a new cassette or group set at this point and the cage on the old one was way out of whack compared to the new one. I haven’t looked at it much closer to see what exactly is bent but a new one fixed the problem entirely. I now have silky smooth shifting across all 11 gears.
Good to hear everything worked out. My bike with the E13 still isn't 100% right. I'll have to check the derailler. It may be slightly bent. Its taken a few good hits!
 
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