10/20/13 11:47 AM

"...had a small pliers popped projectile take out an eye."


Those eye-seeking projectiles, just like gnats!

Too many instances to count, but like this summer, whether working under a sink or putting up a lgt fixture in fresh-cut drywall, the little piece of (old) putty or (new) drywall that falls,(?), ALWAYS seemed to land straight into my eye.

10/20/13 11:59 AM

And crap your arm lodges loose when under the car too. The there is the blow back syndrome as well.

10/20/13 7:18 PM

I saw onion slicing goggles the last time I was in the housewares department. They were pretty aero. Maybe they don't fog up, who knows.

10/21/13 7:36 AM

"onion slicing goggles"

LOL!

Are they air tight or something?[/quote]

10/21/13 1:08 PM

I don't think goggles would help!

It's the vapors that enter the sinuses which cause tearing.

I use a battery-powered fan to swoosh onion vapors out the left side of my field of view, and my eyes never water.
But if my eyes feel a bit dry, I'll just snort the vapors. No need for a rolled $100 dollar bill, lol.

10/22/13 10:49 AM

quote:

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I don't think goggles would help!

It's the vapors that enter the sinuses which cause tearing.

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10/22/13 11:46 AM

You all need to learn to chop faster. Either that, or all the Sriracha I have gotten used to negates lesser evils?

10/22/13 12:51 PM

nm

10/22/13 12:52 PM

nm

10/22/13 2:32 PM

I was just joking about chopping onion. It's really a non-issue.

*IF* you really have a problem with chopping onion... Put the onion in the freezer for 20 minutes. Chop away happily! No tearing of eyes required!!!

10/22/13 2:43 PM

There must be a better way to spend $20

10/22/13 7:51 PM

Another reason for Ultegra Di2 upgrade.

10/23/13 4:12 AM

I do this when gun smithing and even changing watch band pins. A white garbage bag even helps even out the lighting.

10/23/13 6:09 AM

You put the gun in the freezer for 20 minutes?
You wear onion goggles?
You cover your work surface with a white plastic bag?
You drape a plastic bag over your work to catch flying springs?
You work inside a white plastic bag to even out the lighting?

Sorry, I know you posted this at, like, 3 or 4 in the morning, and I'm interested in your technique, but I just don't want to re-read every post for context.

11/1/13 3:06 PM

My wife uses old swimming goggles that no longer seal well and reports no onion problems. Other things undoubtedly work too, but the goggles do not require forethought or advance refrigeration, so you can buy an onion and take it out of the bag and slice it up.

11/1/13 5:46 PM

Today is the first warm day that I can get the bike outside to get some good lighting to take a closer look at what might cause the resistance.

It turns out the resistance is very slight. Once I re-position the shifter back on the right position of the bar (got twisted around the bar), the down shif lever (large lever) rotates inward without hesitation. And moves the cable just fine.

But on return the shifter lever is rubbing, ever so lightly, the housing of the brake pivot!

Close inspection finds the lever slightly out of alignment with regard to the base of the shifter. So the rotating part of the lever is rotating just a tad off center. Or I should say the rotation axis is pointing slightly off-center. (I could see the space between the rotating and stationary part of the brifter is just a tad wider on one side than on the other side) So on the "tight" side, it brush against the stationary part of the pivot structure. Just enough rubbing that the return spring isn't able to push past it.

As it is, the shifter is usable. I just need to "help" it along on the lever return with a slight tap.

But since winter is coming, I'd like to see if I can take it apart just enough to resolve that off-center brake pivot...



quote:
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...
I might first start by removing the front faceplate and spring hardware since that was likely most-affected by the crash, but also inspect where the impact actually is evident, for any distortion of the metal or any bending of the small (upshift) lever.
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The small lever is operating flawlessly.

Although there's scratch marks on the nameplate. It doesn't appear to affect the function of the mech. It appears to me the whole assembly got pushed side way, perhaps bending the support structure so the metalic part of the shifter is now sitting slightly off-center?

quote:
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See:
http://www.norvil.net/pedal/service/shimanosti/removal.php
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It seems to me it's exactly the interface between the moving part of the shifter and the stationary part that's the issue. But I can't quite decipher the photo as to how to separate those two parts...

I'm not too good at comperhending photos. It's not clear to me where that obvious "grub screw" he's talking about... Can those of you who had taken apart STI shifter give me some extra explanation to help my understanding?

11/1/13 5:57 PM

I have no idea about your shifter, but how's the clav?

11/2/13 10:24 PM

Thr grub screw is a set-screw that retains the main brake lever pivot from sliding left or right.

Maybe some impact from the opposite direction might somewhat re-center the rotating core of the shifter within the lever cavity?

I struggled with a couple of old RSX STI left-side levers today, one on a friend's neice's bike and the other a similarly gummed-up spare that I ended up using after some investigation and lubing. Got the shifters both working, but still not certain why the first shifter was allowing the downshift to cross directly from the big ring to the granny. Sometimes it's the cable adjustment in conjunction with the hi-limit screw adjustment that causes some kind of malfunction like that, but not on this one.

Last edited by dddd on 11/4/13 2:55 PM; edited 2 times in total

11/3/13 7:47 AM

...but I saw a puzzling malfunction of a Shimano brifter recently.

I was chasing someone on a local bike path when he pulled over suddenly and began looking at his rear derailleur. I stopped and asked if he needed help. The issue was that the rear derailleur was on the smallest cog and the shift lever wouldn't engage to move it. There was nothing wrong with the cable and after playing around with it for a minute or so, it shifted inward two cogs, but then wouldn't engage again. He was happy enough to have two usable gears (by shifting the front), so we left it at that.

I'm curious about the cause of this. My initial thought is that it's either:

- a failed or failing pawl spring that prevents the lever from engaging the ratchet

- grease/crud in the shifter that became thick enough in the cool weather to cause a malfuntion

What say you all?

11/4/13 2:47 PM

The seasonal timing tells me it's likely some thickening of the grease in one of the pawl pivots, since these pawl springs don't fail anywhere near as often as do the main lever spring.

I had a bike I sold last year come back on Saturday with a different issue.
It's a triple front (RSX) sTI shifter that suddenly started dropping from the big ring all the way down to the garnny ring, skipping the middle ring detent altogether.

Gathering up a spare lever that had a similar problem, working free of the bike, I accessed the retaining pawl's pivot under the thin grey plastic cover that wraps over the main spool, and lubed it directly with a drop of 3-in-1 oil, and after 5 minutes the shifter was ready for re-installation.

Whenever an STI lever stops engaging, as in your recent bike-path incident, the easiest diagnosis is to move the shift lever very much more slowly. If the pawl pivot's grease has thickened, the lever should still work fine if moved slowly enough (or if warmed up).
In the case of my buyer's front shifter failure, the other pawl (the retaining pawl) apparently couldn't move fast enough to catch the spool's middle detent tooth as the derailer's return spring simply pulled/rotated the spool too fast for the gummed pivot's pawl to engage it.

11/4/13 3:48 PM

quote:

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Maybe some impact from the opposite direction might somewhat re-center the rotating core of the shifter within the lever cavity?

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quote:

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Thr grub screw is a set-screw that retains the main brake lever pivot from sliding left or right.

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11/4/13 4:34 PM

The set screw is underneath the brake lever pivot, it's a headless screw so just looks like a black circle perhaps 3mm in dia, and takes a 2mm or 2,5mm allen key iir.

11/13/13 8:33 AM

Ah, I need new glasses! Didn't see that tiny little hole where the headless screw is!

11/17/13 10:59 PM

After an overnight soaking of WD-40, I was able to take the set screw and the brake pivot pin out.

The source of the deformity was still inside the metal part of the shifter. But I was able to bend back the piece the shifter was rubbing, so now the shifter can ove freely! :D

However, I hit a snag on the last step of re-assembling the lever. The 2mm set screw refuses to go back into the screw hole! :(

(the screw looks to be in good condition, it's the hole that seems to be the trouble... in retrospect, I shouldn't (and needn't) have taken the set screw out of the hole, backing off a few turns would have been enough to release the brake pivot pin!)

11/21/13 3:07 PM

Apparently, inserting the brake pivot pin deformed the plastic part of the brifter assembly enough the set screw couldn't go into the screw hole!!! Such briliant engineering... NOT!

I took the lever back out of the base to see what might be blocking the screw hole. Lo and behold, the hole got larger and the set screw went in quite fine. So I put it in half way and then re-assemble the brake/shifter package, tighten the set screw afterward. Everything is hunky dory, FINALLY!

The shifter shifts freely and I don't have to worry about the brake pivot working lose. Pheew!