Got a sweet deal on this frame off of ebay last week. It just came in today, switching all the components from the Raleigh touring frame to this single purpose cyclocross machine!
21 October 2011
04 October 2011
Jason VS Shimano STI
Recently I've been building a cyclo-cross (CX) bike for the upcoming CX season and like many other bike projects, I'm always convinced I can build a bike cheaper than I can buy a new one. This of course only being marginally true if you have a line on acquiring all the necessary parts at a very good price! In reality, I'm not sure this ever works out to be true, but it does put a lot of spare parts I have sitting around back into service again. One of the key deals I got on some parts I didn't have was a set of 9 speed 105 STI levers (ST-5500). The rear (and most critical lever of the two) was gummed up and not working right. After spraying it with some magic aerosol from the bike shop it worked better, but still not good enough to put on the bike. I then decided, I'll just tear it down clean it up and put it back together. A quick internet search revealed that this is not possible, don't do it, sti levers are not serviceable! Fair enough, but there was about 2 websites I found where people had done it and successfully put them back together. Now if anything is broke you're out of luck, Shimano doesn't make service parts for the internals. OK, so fair enough no service parts, but the real reason no one recommends taking them apart is that they are super complex and require very good mechanical skills to understand the parts and put them back together! There is no schematic by the way, but there are few helpful websites from the successful few that have done it.
So I partially took it apart and my first try at putting it back together, I discovered I had just created a pile of junk! Considering it wasn't usable before I started I'm out anything, but that's not the problem. If you're not aware, I'm a Mechanical Engineer, and while I'm above average for book smarts, my real skill is that I have super hands on and practical skills. This is something that sadly many ME's are missing, (but that's completely different subject). So now it's game on, I cannot let the STI mechanism out smart me, it is not my concern that Shimano says the levers are not serviceable.
So who won? I have to admit though the STI mechanism was a solid opponent, I haven't had to do anything this challenging for quite awhile… How did I do it? First, I took pictures as I tore it down. Then I cleaned all the parts. Then I slowly reassembled and figured out what each part did and how. Finally, I was down to the last part and it nearly outsmarted me, and as a last resort effort I took the left hand shifter apart to see what I was missing. Thank goodness for that lever, I'm not sure I would have figured out this last trick on my own! 6 hours later, the STI lever is ready to go back on the bike!
Last thing I'll note is that besides the assembly order of the parts, the biggest challenge is getting all the springs wound up and back in place! There's 3 easy ones, 3 not so easy ones, and 1 super difficult one.
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