I do feel a tad frustrated at how manufacturers chase profit over sustainability when it would be such a simple matter to let owners repair and keep things going longer. A good case in point is SRAM road double tap shifters, inside each, no matter their level, is a small cable spool that the cable attaches to. SRAM have decided to keep costs low and manufacture this out of plastic, sadly this wears over time and will need replacing. The problem is, that despite it costing peanuts to manufacture and SRAM producing millions of these, they refuse to sell these to the public and people who have tried just get told by SRAM to buy a new shifter. Luckily though, there is a company in the English Lake District who have decided to produce a range of spares and upgrades that the manufacturer refuses to provide.
Ratio Technology produce not only a replacement spool, but it's also made out of Aluminium which should prove more durable in the long term. Fitting it requires some open heart surgery on the shifter, so after removing it from the bars, I left the hydraulic hose attached and removed the side cover. The old cable spool is red and the new one can be seen at the front.
As well as the cable spool the kit also contains a M2.5 bolt to facilitate the removal of the axle holding all the shift gubbins together. Soon we had a pile of shifter parts disassembled on the bench.
You can see in the image below the old and new cable spools, the hole that the cable nipple sits in is clearly elongated on the old red plastic spool.
So after cleaning everything, re-assembly is a simple reversal of the disassembly and everything went back together really easily. Try doing this with Shimano products! So thanks to Ratio the shifter is now ready for many more years of use.