My jockeys are squeaking

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Slioch

Guru
Location
York
Oops! You may have chucked a good wheel away. The top one (called the guide pulley) has to have side-to-side play whereas the bottom one (the tension pulley) shouldn't have side-t0-side play.

The play is there to automatically fix gears that are just slightly out of tune. It therefore runs much quieter than a fixed-spindle pulley.

Good quality pulleys used to have brass/ceramic bushings that could be removed, cleaned out and oiled. Nowadays some of them have small cartridge bearings in there which are mostly rubbish. That is no place for a tiny ball bearing, a bushing performs much better.

This was years back, and if I remember correctly the jockey wheels that had the problem had a number of loose bearings in a groove that I was constantly having to disassemble to repack with grease. The ones I replaced them with had bushings and solved the problem.

Good point about the top wheel being designed to have some play in it though.
 

Slioch

Guru
Location
York
Make sure they are sitting on the horse right ?

 
OP
OP
C

Crackle

..
Oops! You may have chucked a good wheel away. The top one (called the guide pulley) has to have side-to-side play whereas the bottom one (the tension pulley) shouldn't have side-t0-side play.

The play is there to automatically fix gears that are just slightly out of tune. It therefore runs much quieter than a fixed-spindle pulley.

Good quality pulleys used to have brass/ceramic bushings that could be removed, cleaned out and oiled. Nowadays some of them have small cartridge bearings in there which are mostly rubbish. That is no place for a tiny ball bearing, a bushing performs much better.
Is that right. I thought there was no difference between them. That said, I haven't accidentaly swopped them or any of the bushed parts as I took them off one at a time. It did actually occur to me to change the order but clearly if what you say is correct, it will impact gear changing.
 

Sittingduck

Legendary Member
Location
Somewhere flat
Had this issue once, Crax. Couldn't fix 'em - tried the removal, cleaning and re-greasing but no joy. The price of rear mechs these days made sense to replace the lot rather than ordering seperate jockey wheels. Unless it's high end kit of course? :smile:
 
OP
OP
C

Crackle

..
Had this issue once, Crax. Couldn't fix 'em - tried the removal, cleaning and re-greasing but no joy. The price of rear mechs these days made sense to replace the lot rather than ordering seperate jockey wheels. Unless it's high end kit of course? :smile:
I think I've reached the replace conclusion. It's just puzzling me why it's not responding to oil or grease and continuing to squeak but I've reached my squeak limit now, I'm squeaked out and my squeak easy thread has vented my ire. It's 105 but if the LBS has some wheels in I shall get them first, not having your deep pockets. MacB would just replace the bike.
 

Robeh

Senior Member
Location
Wiltshire
shame you dont have a spare set off jockey wheels to try...
i would just replace them tbh..cheap enough to buy online.
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/...uDUoP4U_ij_-Ozjm0bb1pxoCz8fw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
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Globalti

Legendary Member
FWIW I replaced some worn plastic jockey wheels with fancy alloy ones, the shopkeeper couldn't sell them for £40 (am I surprised?) so he let me have them for £20. They are far superior to plastic ones for shifting response and accuracy but then I have Ultegra 6700 shifters, the first with the hidden cables and they don't shift well at all so any improvement is welcome.
 
Mine sounded like a whole load of chaffinches chasing me... Took me ages to work out that the jockey wheels had simply worn out and needed replacing...
I'm certain there is a link to a noises website that says exactly that... one of you posted it for me and solved the problem. New jockey wheels and the birds stopped chasing me... ahhh actually that could be a problem :laugh:
 
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