Gunky shifter?

Okay ladies, I'm at a loss. My front derailluer is being a big old piece of poo! I've had it adjusted, new cables, new housing, and the only thing they had left to suggest was that there was some "play" in the shifter itself and maybe to clean it and give it some tri-flo.

But I'm scaaaaared! I'm gonna pick up Zinn's MTB book, but has anyone else ever gutted their shifters? Should I suck it up and do it, or take it back to the shop and grovel? I'm apparently more mechanically inclined than I let on, according to my friends.

More importantly, does anyone else think this is the problem. I have to seriously romp on my shifter, hold it for days, and then it still doesn't always go. Not so fun when barreling down gravel fire roads.

love and cookies
-smurf

The Peugeot was doing that - would NOT shift into 1st or 2nd gear no matter what I did, but according to my maintainence book (I bought the Bicycling Mag Bike Maintainence for all types of bikes coz the pictures are Real photos) it was just a matter of adjusting the high/low screws on the back derailleur. If yours is the front, there should be 2 screws on the mount by the front maybe (maybe not) marked H n L. One of them controls the throw down and the other - OK...I'm NOT going to say it....the throw up! (oops...yes I did). I'm guessing that your bike shop guys have played with that, but I guessed my bike shop guys had done the same thing on the Peugeot. All I know is, I played with it myself, and fixed the problem.

Hope this helps.

It almost sounds like what my shifter was doing last year. I'd hit it, and **nothing**. It literally was gunked up. This was during the cindy training rides last year, which met at a bike shop. I asked one of the bike techs to take a look. He flipped it a couple times, then proceeded to shoot WD40 into the shifter, spin the wheels, and shift like mad. He wiped off all the mess, and the shifter has been fine ever since.