Cycling UK Forum

After a period of time using the trigger shifter, I can honestly say it is so much better than the thumbshifter. The gear changes are more positive, less noise and crunching from the hub, and even gear 5 has remained in place occasionally. (Gear 5 still skips occasionally though.)

I continued to ensure that I wasn't putting pressure on the pedals during each change and, whilst not completely problem free, the bike is so much better.

Thanks to everyone who suggested ideas, especially Brucey!

I was just hoping to work out if the shifter was causing the problem of selecting gears 1-4 not being as smooth as they could be. You explained brilliantly what the problems with 5th may be due to.

I haven't opened the hub again, but the pawls seemed ok to my inexperienced eyes.

Right, new shifter ordered to see if it makes any difference at all. If it doesn't then at least I will know where the problem lies.

I took a look at the hub and I can't see anything on the brake backplate, but there was the remnants of a number on the hub. I wiped it with my finger and the number promptly wiped off...

Thanks Brucey. I will give it a go and report back.

Thanks for all the replies. So pleased with the responses to my problem.

It sounds like my bike may have been one of the early versions with the rotary hub, and from what Brucey said the SLC50-T shifter is highly suspect. Is the DLC50 trigger shifter a suitable alternative? I will probably change it just to see if there is any improvement, but if the thumbshifters are all the same it seems a bit pointless to stick with it. Overhaul sounds like the proverbial pain in the posterior.

I did gently dress the pawls before putting them back in - I agree the spare parts situation for these hubs is not as good as for their predecessors. Having searched part numbers, not much shows up as available. I will soldier on for a while, but as you say why carry on with a hub that might never work properly.

I had the wheel out yesterday to fix a broken spoke. While it was out I took a look at the changing mechanism. The fulcrum arm on my version only has two markings. One for standard dropouts and one for rearward facing/vertical dropouts. It was originally set up on the second of those options - how I don't know as nothing seems to line up when putting the wheel back in. Perhaps it was a Friday afternoon bike!

I agree with Sid that there are differences between the instruction sheet and the physical hub, but the measurement for the pinch bolt seemed quite straightforward and I haven't had any problems with getting the yellow marks aligned once I changed the gear cable and put the fulcrum arm in the correect position. It seems quite a good system to me.

Many thanks for replying Brucey. Definitely RX-RD5 with rotary shifting/70mm brakes. I have another bike with X-RD5(W) hub. I think the bike is about 4 years old, but I haven't got the greatest memory for these things so could be slightly younger.

As I mentioned, the hub hasn't really worked properly since I got it, so the high gear pawls being damaged by bad adjustment doesn't surprise me. The adjustment process that SA describe in their literature resulted in different results each time, with the markings aligning in different places despite sometimes not adjusting the cable tension. The cable was replaced and seemed to rectify a lot of that. I was starting to wonder about the shifter, so I will investigate that. The gear change on it does seem a bit wishy washy sometimes, especially on 1 and 5. Can shifters be overhauled, or would you suggest replacement? I imagine the latter.

I will investigate the three possibilities for gear 5 slippage you describe. Very useful info. I think the sun locking sounds like a possible cause combined with the possible shifter problem.

I'll update this once I have tried a few things.

Thank you so much.
Ian

Sorry to jump in with a problem for my first post on this board, but I am totally flummoxed and don't really know what to do next. There seems to be plenty of good advice from knowledgable people here, so I am hoping somebody might be able to help me.

I bought a new Pashley Parabike a few years ago. From the start it has given me problems with the SA 5 speed hub. Despite lots of searching online, I haven't really found any complaints about this hub, so assume it is usually fairly reliable.

It will skip and crunch in pretty much all gears and 5th is so bad it may as well not be there. On first investigation, the hub had been set up with the settings for rear facing/vertical dropouts rather than the forward facing dropouts fitted to the bike. I set it up correctly and changed the gear cable which seemed to be sticking. Whilst slightly better, it didn't really cure the problem and the bike was put away and didn't really get used for a couple of years.

I recently took a deep breath and opened the hub. I immediately found two loose bearings from the ball ring bearing. I went through each part examining, cleaning and regreasing. Nothing appeared to be worn/damaged, except the pawls on the gear ring which had a couple of minor chips. (I think this would be caused by the skipping, and not be the cause of the problem?)

Needing the bike, I reasssembled the hub, thinking the problems may have been caused by the loose bearings. When reassembling, I did the RH cone up finger tight and backed it off just enough so the hub span freely without play and then adjusted the hub using the LH cone. I still have the same problems. and just wondered if anybody could shed some light on them please?