Got very excited to fit a NOS Deore XT m738 triple FD to my touring bike but have been having issues. The bike has basically a brand new Shimano chainrings 50t-45t-28t. When in the highest chainring, either the outer cage hits the chain or the inner cage hits the middle chainring. There's very little wiggle room. I looked up the specs and it seems I'm exceeding the capacity by a few teeth. Is there any way to make this work or am I SOL?
by shower_thots
4 Comments
Most road bike triple derailleurs are designed to work with a 39T middle ring. If you can swap out that middle chainring for a 39T it would solve the problem.
Is that your preference, or it just came like that? It is a little unusual for two chainrings to be so close in size because it will give your overall shifting less noticeable range. If it’s not a choice, I’d definitely recommend changing the middle ring to something that splits the difference better between the other two.
If you like them so close to the same size like that, you could maybe try moving the whole derailleur up just a smidge by loosening the clamp a little, scootch it up (like 2mm or less), check the angle, tighten back down.
Would it work to move the derailleur up on the seat tube a bit?
I just checked my XT equipped 1996 and it has 22/32/42 so your possibly way out of spec. 8x on the rear.