Barrel Screw wows

[coyote]

My back derailler was not shifting correctly so I cleaned and oiled my chain, ect. I decided I would try the Barrel Adjustment for the derailler. It really drives me nuts when I have to do a click and a half to change gears. Well I really should learn to stop and take a deep breath. I was turning the barrel screw the way I thought it should go....then, heres where the deep breath should have come in.....I wondered what would happen if I really turned it a lot. Hmmm that was interesting, so what happens if I really turn it a lot the other way...another big breath would have been helpful....oh and now where was I? And before I knew it. I had solved my click n 1/2 problem. Now it was a cog behind what the indexer says and takes about 5 minutes to get to the next gear. Well, I decided to take it slow. So for the past few mornings I've been adjusting the barrel screw a 1/4 turn at a time. Then last night I lost patience and turned the thing really tight and dumped the wrench into my bag. On the way to work it did great. It shifted as it should. I got to the bike rack and found out that it is a gear off.

My next endevour is to go to a bike repair class and do this under supervision. Oh well maybe next time I will take a deep breath but I felt really good about having 'fixed' my bike this morning. I'm not easily discourage.

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Last year i was screwing around with the barrel adjusters too (no pun intended). I wound up totally messing up my shifting and took it in to get a tune-up. Turned out I had actually stripped one of the barrel adjusters- not hard to do because they are somewhat soft plastic. The LBS got everything squared away beautifully and I am more careful now. It sure is easy to lose track of which diection and how much you turned it last.

More like barrel adjusters "d'Oh!"s than woes.

[coyote]

More like barrel adjusters "d'Oh!"s than woes.

True words were never spoken...maybe I shouldn't have used the wrench

[madscot13]

Okay I noticed that I can only get my lowest and highest gears on my cassette. I tried to fix it by twisting the barrell, but that wasn't doing much. So I untwisted the barrell and tried to pull it tight that way. BUT I must have stripped that bolt or something because now it won't go on and I am peeved! I think i will bike around tomorrow with only three gears! This might be rough!

[madscot13]

Forget what I just posted. I fixed it! Ha ha ha. I switched out the specialty derailler nut for whatever I had lying around. I think the nut was dethreaded or whatever you call it. Switches gears easy now. I am mastress of the bike (NOT matress!) Bwa ha ha.

[coyote]

Way to go! Thats showing the bike who is boss!