So I’ve had this bike for around three weeks and I’ve been adjusting things trying to get everything right. My problem right now is that the chain is clicking too much while trying to get to 2nd gear and it doesn’t reach 7th gear. I’ve tried messing with the l and h screws as well as the barrel adjusters but I don’t know what I’m doing. YT and ChatGPT has been the way I’ve been teaching myself.
by Beautiful-While-4284
5 Comments
No wonder you can’t get the gears to index properly. That derailleur hanger is bent. LBS time or buy a derailleur hanger alignment tool.
Don’t use chat GPT. There are bits of truth to it and also completely made up shit all stated with equal authority.
Follow a step by step guide to setting up rear derailleur gears, maybe on Park tool website, or rj the bike guy on yt who tends to work on older bikes that would be closer to yours.
It looks like your derailleur hanger could be a little bent, it’s often really hard to tell from photos but it doesn’t really look particularly bad to me. 7 speed is quite agricultural also so you tend to get a wider margin of error for things to be in perfect alignment. You may have just not set it up right.
Start from the beginning in making sure your h limit screw is set correctly for top gear, at least one of your limit screws looks way wrong to me. Shifter in highest gear and make sure that the cable is clamped correctly at the derailleur and continue from there. Follow the process.
Nice old bike!
I might add to make sure that derailer is right for your cassette it looks like you have a 11-32 cassette the reason you might not be able to shift into the bigger cogs might be the derailer is not long enough for the guide pulleys to clear the cogs
Here is a good video on [how to fix a bent derailleur hanger](https://youtu.be/TnwreRrorIA?si=EnR-fKMrCZnBTsZR)
Looks to me as if the gearshift (Casette) has more than 7 gears, but you have an old gearshift that can only shift 6 or 7 gears? Check what components you have installed and whether they are compatible with each other.