I was replacing a broken shifter cable on my right shifter and had to remove the inside cover from the bracket (the shift cable broke inside the lever so I had to extract it from the inside of the lever). While I was doing this I noticed that a spring inside the lever had broken. Picture one is the piece of the spring that fell out (units of the ruler are cm). Picture two is the remaining piece of the spring inside the lever, circled in red, and where I think the other end was attached to, circled in blue (this was where it was right before it fell out).
I know the lever assemblies aren't really designed to be user serviceable but seeing as the alternative is likely to buy a whole new lever it seems worth a shot. I've looked around and cannot find any info on a replacement spring (best I can find is this Shimano dealers manual but it doesn't go into enough detail). Does anyone know a part number for the spring or where I could get a suitable replacement? I would assume if I can figure out the length and spring rate I could just order an equivalent replacement on McMaster or the like? Thanks in advance.
by skamhes1974
1 Comment
Shimano doesn’t sell parts to service shifters. This is why Campagnolo was seen as the superior road groupset for many years since you could buy every piece of the shifter individually from campy. However, now they’re only like 5% (or less) of the entire market share of bike component companies. Shimano currently has like 70-80% of the market share, so we’re currently living in a Shimano-dominated world and have to bend to their will.
I would look up the exploded visual of the shifter on shimano’s site and see what each end of that spring looks like. Might be something you could find or at least rig up from stuff you can find at your local hardware store.
As a bike shop mechanic, there’s 3 ways to fix it;
1. The right way
2. The correct way
3. The innovative way
The right way to fix this shifter is to take another broken shifter and see if you can scavenge the spring off of it.
The correct way is to replace the whole shifter (correct is subjective here since that’s shimano’s ‘official’ recommendation.
The innovative way is the way you’re likely to go. So if you do manage to fix this shifter, please let me know so I can attempt the same fix if I have a shifter that breaks the same way.