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    Update: Can you help me get my uncle back on his bike?

    Thanks for all your advice in my last post!

    I've since spent all of last weekend cleaning up my uncle's bike and put in new cables, grips, pedals, seatpost, seat, and tires! He is taking it for a spin as we speak and seems to like it! Unfortunately it is not 100% done, maybe 90%.

    1. The front fork is pretty shot, I recommended he get a rigid fork or another mtb shock that's 1 1/8" threaded
    2. I feel quite hunched over riding it, and he's taller than me, despite it being a 19.5" frame. The new stem and handlebars are on their way and they should make the riding position more comfy.
    3. For some reason the front derailleur shifter wont got into the biggest chainring unless you push the lever really far (like unnaturally far). I've posted an image below of an extra part that I found during reassembly 😅, could that be causing this issue?

    by wwoolyieten

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    12 Comments

    1. kgoodz on

      1. For sure get a rigid fork. That original fork was dead 20 years ago. The bike will shed a few pounds in the process.

      3. These bikes have a ton of housing and the cable tension/limit screw have to be dialed almost perfectly. You do have to push it quite a bit but I would guess there’s still some slack to pull out of the cable.

    2. drewbaccaAWD on

      Are you sure it’s 1-1/8″ ? If it is, and I was upgrading the fork, I’d be installing a threadless headset rather than sticking with threaded. If it’s 1″, there’s probably better availability in threaded.

      Not sure about the rusty part but I don’t think it goes with the front derailleur..It sort of reminds me of one of those bits that go in the old annoying saddle clamps. But really, no idea off hand.

      Why is the FD housing going all the way to the FD clamp? There should be a housing stop and just a bare cable down to the FD clamp. Your issue is probably something along those lines because it doesn’t look correct to me. Need to see better pictures but you should not have a housing run all the way to that type of FD (only on more recent side swings, that I’m aware of).

      ~~Actually, to the last point, isn’t this a bottom routed FD frame? The derailleur looks like a bottom pull. Or do you have some sort of pulley stop to reverse it that I’m just not seeing?~~

      (edit) look at this bike, and notice the clamp that stops the housing and the cable drops down. [Reader’s Rig: Nick’s 1991 Trek 970 Singletrack – BIKEPACKING.com](https://bikepacking.com/news/readers-rig-nicks-trek-970/)

      Something like this, although it doesn’t need to be this brand [Cable Backstop – Problem Solvers](https://problemsolversbike.com/products/cable-backstop)

      (second edit) that’s how it looks in the catalog though.. I have a few old Trek’s but non of them are set up like this. I can’t quite see what is going on but it’s an odd approach. You’ll have to have someone with this setup chime in. [1991_20treksmall.pdf](https://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/d/98771-3/1991_20treksmall.pdf)

    4. Metaphoricalsimile on

      That bit does look like an internal component for the shifter tbh

      I would consider replacing the front shifter with a friction thumb shifter. In my experience they work better with triples anyways.

    6. SinclairPB on

      I’ll start with lovely build and good job bringing it back to life. I would just shorten the housing on the FD it’s a slim chance, but it could be to long and causing the issues. The other thing thats slim is that shifter and derailleur aren’t compatible but that is unlikely that stuff is pretty universal. Like some on else said you could do thumb friction shifter to make it a little better or get the problem solvers cable stop and eliminate the big chunk of housing.

    7. rodneytrousers on

      You’ve got an excess of housing from the top tube cable stop to the derailleur. I’d cut out a few inches to reduce unnecessary friction.

      Your long shift lever pull could be due to the housing settling after the initial shifts. Loosen the front derailleur’s cable clamp (which I believe is on the seat tube for this model, yeah?) and try pulling out all of the slack in the line. While it’s disconnected, actuate the front derailleur by hand to confirm your high limit screw is set correctly to allow the FD to reach the outer ring properly. The front derailleur routing on these is odd but I’ve never found a difference in shift lever feel or throw once it’s all set up.

    10. clearlynotamonkey on

      I have the same bike, same color, same front derailleur issue, but I have the rigid Big Fork. It seems like the front derailleur that came stock with the bike is just “like that”, or it is the shifter, if you still have the original shifters on it. The shifter has to be pushed unnaturally far for it to make it there even though all of the limit screws are dialed and the cables and housing are fresh. I assumed it was a shifter problem since they are so old. I actually just got rid of the front completely and upgraded to Advent X.

      https://preview.redd.it/ve2nj7sad7vf1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da67cfec3a7072028b2d21862ebc538b387d1190

    11. frogs_fear_me on

      I have the same bike. Fantastic ride.

      Interestingly, it didn’t seem to come with the DS2 shock fork (that was on the 1992 990) but mine also had one when I picked it up. I replaced with a rigid Tange fork- it’s not too hard to find 1 1/8” threaded on eBay.

      You got a good answer on the missing part in another comment. My XT shifters are amazing, in fact my favorite shifter of ANY era. No problems getting into the big ring. I wonder if shortening up the housing a little for the front derailleur and checking limit screws could help. Did you clean the shifter out? It helped mine to do a WD-40 flush.

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