Please help me figure out what's going on with my rear derailleur!

[Globalti]

There should definitely be a plastic ferrule where the cable enters the frame, not to have one would be bad practice as the cable is free to flop around. Also any dirt and water from washing the bike will dribble in there and clog and rust the ends of the steel reinforcements in the cable outer, causing friction and making clean shifts difficult. I bet if you dismantle it now you'll find the end of the cable outer already manky and rusty.

Replace the cable outer and fit plastic ferrules to both ends with a liberal dab of grease or Vaseline inside and outside the ferrule to waterproof the end.

 

[Tim Hall]

Is that an inline adjuster by the head tube? We had hours of harmless fun on a ride once where the in line adjuster was getting frobbed by a bar bag. Adjust until perfect , ride a few miles, stop and readjust. Repeat until bored. Fixed by a twist of insulating tape round the adjuster.

 

[NorvernRob]

There should definitely be a plastic ferrule where the cable enters the frame, not to have one would be bad practice as the cable is free to flop around. Also any dirt and water from washing the bike will dribble in there and clog and rust the ends of the steel reinforcements in the cable outer, causing friction and making clean shifts difficult. I bet if you dismantle it now you'll find the end of the cable outer already manky and rusty.

Replace the cable outer and fit plastic ferrules to both ends with a liberal dab of grease or Vaseline inside and outside the ferrule to waterproof the end.

There's a ferrule inside the frame, I've looked at stock photos of the same bikes and they're setup like this. I've pulled the cable out and had a look, the ferrule is undamaged and the cable is perfect. They're Teflon coated and the coating is still fully intact.

Is that an inline adjuster by the head tube? We had hours of harmless fun on a ride once where the in line adjuster was getting frobbed by a bar bag. Adjust until perfect , ride a few miles, stop and readjust. Repeat until bored. Fixed by a twist of insulating tape round the adjuster.

Yes it is, the problem with it being something as simple as that is that I would be able to make a simple adjustment to get it running right again. But once it starts being noisy, no adjustments to cable tension will correct it fully. But releasing the cable from the clamp and resetting it up again will.

I'll try removing and refitting the cassette, and if nothing changes I'll recable it with new inners and outers. It's so frustrating, the bike cost a fortune and something simple is ruining my enjoyment of it!

 

[NorvernRob]

I've just noticed something I didn't know before - my wheels are 11 speed compatible. The only spacer I have on is the one that fits in the recess at the rear of the Ultegra cassette, but the dura ace one I took off was exactly the same. To me the cassette isn't actually spaced as it should be for 10 speed, but surely it wouldn't come setup wrongly from the factory?

I've got a 1mm spacer knocking around and could fit it, does anyone think this could be the issue?

 

[Dragonwight]

Yep I have 11/10/9 speed wheels too and used a 1mm spacer with Ultegra cassette, although weirdly mine was 9 speed so I shouldn't have needed it. Still it fixed the problem.

 

[NorvernRob]

It can't hurt anything to try, I'll pop it on tomorrow. I can give it a test ride on Tuesday and see how it goes.

 

[NorvernRob]

Well I actually had both the 10 speed spacer and the 1mm Cassette spacer on there, which I assume was right. I took off the 1mm spacer anyway just to try it, the cassette locked up tight so I'll see how it goes.

 

[NorvernRob]

Well, I re-indexed the rear mech, cleaned and lubed the chain and did the 65 Roses Classic a couple of weeks ago. It was lovely and quiet, the gears were perfect.....until towards the end of the ride when it started sounding like a bag of spanners again.

I visually checked the alignment of the jockey wheel when I got home and it looked spot on as it should be. I'm now at a complete loss, I'm going to have to take it to the lbs to check if anything is bent or if they can see anything wrong. There does seem to be quite a lot of play in the rear mech (I can wiggle the cage by around 5mm side to side if I hold the bottom) but as I got it new and it doesn't have many miles on it I'm assuming that's normal.

I'm at the point now where I have a bike that cost a fortune and I don't want to ride it. If the lbs can't find anything (I'll have the cables replaced anyway just in case) I'll have to try and pickup a force/rival rear mech and fit that to see if it solves the issue.