Just while riding along, my shifter suddenly decided to only shift down - not up anymore. Bike-shop: “get a new one” After opening the shifter (a special bit is needed for that), it’s clear that the spring at the very top is broken:
Sadly, this spring is not sold as a separate part.
Losing the snap ring at the back of the bolt that holding the spring and bending the front sheet metal a little bit to the right allowed the bold and spring to be taken out:
Bending a new spring out of 1mm spring wire with a drill, a bend nail and two blocks of wood holding the wire. The Nail should be 2mm in diameter to allow for a final inner diameter of 3mm of the spring.
Bending the spring legs in position:
Works again:
This is an ST-RS505 right side shifter, btw.
I have two bike shops nearby. My freehub body was on it’s last leg. And I wanted to repair it and use some new ballbearings. First shop didn’t have them and said the freehubs can’t be repaired. The other one gave me the bearings for free and sent me on my way with a „have fun tinkering“.
I think what they usually mean is “that can’t be repaired in a cost-effective way”… or “I only know how to attach new parts to a bike”…
And to be fair, that’s totally understandable! But still sad. The alternative are two new shifters instead of a single spring. Plus this doesn’t seem to happen so infrequently as I have found out in a german forum.
Yeah in your case it’s super fiddly work, and I guess every shifter is a little bit different. But the comment on the freehub really annoyed me, from what I gathered cleaning and regreasing a freehub used to be a standard repair. And not even that hard or long. I get that a new hub is cheaper than the 15/30min rate of a bike mechanic, but saying it’s impossible is just weird.
This is the general sentiment towards repairing machines now. With cars you used to repair some parts - alternators, starters, pumps. Now you just replace the whole thing. It makes it easier on the shop but more expensive and wasteful.
Makes me sad.
