Friday, October 9, 2009

RD Cage Spring Repair Guide

Yay! My chain tension problems are now officially a thing of the past. Hopefully. Anyway with the help of this website I figured out how to fix the cage spring tension in my SRAM XO derailleur. And all you need to fix it is a 2.5mm allen wrench, and if you plan on servicing the derailleur while you're at it, also have some cleaner and grease ready. I like using the cheap autozone engine degreaser for cleaning.

Step 1:
Disassemble the cage by removing the two pulley screws. Make sure you keep all the bearing parts of the pulley together. At this point you can clean and regrease the pulley bearings.

Step 2:
Remove the little stopper screw (the one that the cage rests against when not in use, it prevents it from rotating back too far).

Step 3:
Let the cage rotate all the way back, it is pressed on, with a little wiggling at some point it will come off. When it pops off, make sure you don't lose the cage spring. This is a good point to clean the inside out and regrease.

Step 4:
Now you need to determine what the spring tension needs to be. Take a look at the below picture:


There are three holes, the one located on the far counterclockwise end in the picture will create the most spring tension, the middle one is the default/stock hole the spring is inserted in, the one on the far clockwise end will decrease spring tension.

At first I inserted the spring in the far counterclockwise to up the tension in the cage spring. I reassembled the derailleur and the tension still was very weak. So then I disassembled it again, insterted the spring in the weakest spring tension hole, and assembled it by rotating the cage an extra rotation before popping it back in place, essentially adding an extra rotation to the spring. Keep reading for assembly instructions.

Step 5:
The spring fits into a slot on the derailleur side, wiggle the cage into position, making sure the spring is inserted into the right slot/hole, then rotating until the D-fitting on the stub snaps in place. If you want to add the extra rotation, rotate the cage when the spring is snapped in place, but before the D-fitting snaps in place. Press the cage firmly back on.

Step 6:
Rotate the cage past the stopper point, and put the stopper back on.

Step 7:
Re-assemble the rest of the cage and pulleys.

DONE

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