A simple question, here.
I know there are various free or low-cost hacks to align a derailleur gauge, but can any of you recommend a specialised tool such as the Park Tool DAG-2.2 but preferably cheaper?
If not, does anyone have an opinion on the Park Tool model? The DAG-2.2 (replacing the similar DAG-2 that was recently discontinued) is in the £55–£60 range. It’s a fair whack of cash but not inconceivably expensive for something that would give decades of occasional use. Do any of you own one for home use?
Thanks!
Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park Tool?
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
Couple of alternatives here http://www.webbline.co.uk/store/c7/General_Tools.html
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
The contents of this post, unless otherwise stated, are opinions of the author and may actually be complete codswallop
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
I presume you've seen the road.cc review here? http://road.cc/content/review/169571-park-tool-dag-222
Some of the commenters there seem to suggest that you can get as good a result from the lifeline, but others reckon it's got a bit much play to be as accurate as the Park.
Some of the commenters there seem to suggest that you can get as good a result from the lifeline, but others reckon it's got a bit much play to be as accurate as the Park.
-
gregoryoftours
- Posts: 2371
- Joined: 22 May 2011, 7:14pm
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
- 493080_1.jpg (6.51 KiB) Viewed 3865 times
recommend it particularly- it's quite awkward to use, quite flexy, has a bit of free play and also the nut that butts up against the hanger isn't always square on. You can get ok results but hard to get bang on.
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
That road.cc review, which I hadn’t read before now, does a great job of selling the Park Tool. There’s a line too that says, “With an rrp of £62.99 for the new 2.2 version (and prices online of around £40 for the DAG-2) …” – but it looks like I’m too late for the £40 bargains.
Gregoryoftours: your comments mention the flaws I’d worry about with a tool of this sort. Probably the Park is not perfect either, but it looks like the smart bet, judging by the road.cc review. The price is not so very much more than the cheapest options; it seems no-one is making one of these for a tenner.
The Abbey Tools HAG and Efficient Velo Tools Tru-Arc look impressive but the prices make no sense for a home tinkerer, even though I suspect most sales are precisely to (well-off) home tinkerers!
Gregoryoftours: your comments mention the flaws I’d worry about with a tool of this sort. Probably the Park is not perfect either, but it looks like the smart bet, judging by the road.cc review. The price is not so very much more than the cheapest options; it seems no-one is making one of these for a tenner.
The Abbey Tools HAG and Efficient Velo Tools Tru-Arc look impressive but the prices make no sense for a home tinkerer, even though I suspect most sales are precisely to (well-off) home tinkerers!
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
you know what, hack be damned, I reckon an old wheel with an M10x1 threaded axle in it is probably better than any of these tools.... 
cheers
cheers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
Brucey wrote:you know what, hack be damned, I reckon an old wheel with an M10x1 threaded axle in it is probably better than any of these tools....
What if you had to buy one to have a wheel with M10x1 threaded axle lying around? Might cost more than the Park Tool!
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
By the way, although I found that road.cc review very useful (including the clear photos that can be made full-screen), he does say a couple of odd things, including that he replaces cable outers every 1000 km or so. Assuming that isn’t just made-up waffle of the sort I suspect often fills reviews, that seems wildly excessive to me.
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
Get the hanger checked at a LBS (is this your new Spa frame??)Samuel D wrote:Brucey wrote:you know what, hack be damned, I reckon an old wheel with an M10x1 threaded axle in it is probably better than any of these tools....
What if you had to buy one to have a wheel with M10x1 threaded axle lying around? Might cost more than the Park Tool!
I've never considered buying the tool and rarely felt the need to use one. When I do, yes I have a spare back wheel knockin around. Surely in years to come, you will aquire a 2nd bike? Which will come with a very handy free mech hanger alignement tool
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
Samuel D wrote:Brucey wrote:you know what, hack be damned, I reckon an old wheel with an M10x1 threaded axle in it is probably better than any of these tools....
What if you had to buy one to have a wheel with M10x1 threaded axle lying around? Might cost more than the Park Tool!
Just use your current wheel, remove the springs from the qr, screw the axle in to the hanger and replace the qr without springs and tighten up so the nut butts against the back of the hanger. You may need an extra washer if your axle protrudes through the hanger.
Peugeot 531 pro, Dawes Discovery Tandem, Dawes Kingpin X2, Raleigh 20 stowaway X2, 1965 Moulton deluxe, Falcon K2 MTB dropped bar tourer, Rudge Bi frame folder, Longstaff trike conversion on a Giant XTC 840, Giant Bowery, Apollo transition.
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
Of all expendable stuff you can buy for bike maintenance , a hanger alignment tool is the utmost expendable .
Adjustable spanner and/or plastic hammer+flat piece of steel is all you need and it's BETTER then bending at a threaded eye.
I would never spend 1 cent on someting like that.
Adjustable spanner and/or plastic hammer+flat piece of steel is all you need and it's BETTER then bending at a threaded eye.
I would never spend 1 cent on someting like that.
-
recumbentpanda
- Posts: 286
- Joined: 6 Apr 2009, 12:13pm
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
With my entirely unqualified amateur engineer hat on, I have yet to encounter any derailleur mech at any price point on which the play in the bearings and / or the flex in the cage did not make fine alignment of the hanger entirely pointless.
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
When you buy cheap Chinese hangers (aliexpress) you can even compensate wearing of your rear mech en use them years longer....
Re: Derailleur hanger alignment gauge – cheaper than Park To
With any scheme for alignment I'd normally still want a wheel in the frame, ideally with a solid axle in the hub, whilst the adjustment is being made.
The main reason for this is that the frame may not bend where you want it to otherwise; the wheel in the frame helps support the dropout and many (esp horizontal ones) will bend in the wrong place if they are not well supported thus.
The other slightly more prosaic reason for this is that the wheel in the frame provides a reference face for the dropout alignment tool/tool wheel to checked against; without a wheel in the frame it is difficult to get the alignment right.
BTW if the tool/wheel that is screwed into the hanger protrudes inside the dropout face much (and many will) you can normally fit the wheel in the frame reversed i.e. so that the sprockets are on the left side rather than the right. Provided the wheel in the frame is a rim brake wheel then this normally allows everything to be fitted easily enough.
Note that -although it is undoubtedly easier if it is- the 'tool-wheel' need not be perfectly straight or round; i.e. it can be a scrap wheel. It will still do its job perfectly well if you use the same point on the rim to take each measurement.
BTW whilst you can do all kinds of things using hammers, adjustable spanners etc it is as well to be aware that some gear hangers will tend to bend in eye itself if you use an adjustable spanner on them. For this reason the best method is usually to clamp something through the eye itself, i.e. an axle with a track nut both sides of the eye. This also prevents the threads in the eye from being damaged.
If you wanted to make a tool (rather than have a potentially useful spare wheel) then I think you can make one easily enough; an old hub with M10x1 axle thread (eg shimano cassette hub with solid axle), an M10 threaded stunt peg from a bmx (or alternately a length of thick-walled tube that will fit over the axle and act as a lever), a strip of steel sheet (say 1mm x 50mm x 650mm), four M3 threaded 16mm long nuts and bolts.
The method would be to fold the steel strip in half, then drill holes through (the strip and the flange) that each end of the strip can be bolted to a flange in two places. This will give you a gauging point to check against the rim.
The stunt peg (or tube), once attached to free end of the hub, will make a lever that can allow the gear hanger to be reset.
Possibly you could substitute something else (eg mudguard stays) for the gauging part of the tool; anything that can be bolted to the flange and then is stiff enough to provided a datum point (rather than a lever) is good enough.
Note that any 'tool' that uses a hub thus is arguably better than a commercial tool; whilst a commercial tool can wear or be sloppy from the start, hub bearings can always be adjusted back to zero clearance. In addition should the centre pin in a tool become bent, it is pretty much 'game over', (if you can actually detect the error). By contrast if the axle in the 'tool-hub' becomes bent this is both easy to detect and correct if needs be.
Finally it is as well to understand how accurate the setting needs to be. Hanger alignment is jut one thing that helps a system to work OK and it is the cumulative effect of many such things that affects how the system actually works. IIRC the shimano specifications allow a small degree of 'toe in' and 'negative camber' and in fact the system may work slightly better if there is some rather than none of both these things. On a 700C wheel this means that (if you are aiming for 0 to 1 degree of each) you are trying to get the end of the tool to lie within a chosen band ~5mm wide (each 1mm is about 0.2 degrees). [NB Plenty of people have set their gear hanger 'wrong' deliberately so that it helps correct for a slightly bent rear mech, too...
]
cheers
The main reason for this is that the frame may not bend where you want it to otherwise; the wheel in the frame helps support the dropout and many (esp horizontal ones) will bend in the wrong place if they are not well supported thus.
The other slightly more prosaic reason for this is that the wheel in the frame provides a reference face for the dropout alignment tool/tool wheel to checked against; without a wheel in the frame it is difficult to get the alignment right.
BTW if the tool/wheel that is screwed into the hanger protrudes inside the dropout face much (and many will) you can normally fit the wheel in the frame reversed i.e. so that the sprockets are on the left side rather than the right. Provided the wheel in the frame is a rim brake wheel then this normally allows everything to be fitted easily enough.
Note that -although it is undoubtedly easier if it is- the 'tool-wheel' need not be perfectly straight or round; i.e. it can be a scrap wheel. It will still do its job perfectly well if you use the same point on the rim to take each measurement.
BTW whilst you can do all kinds of things using hammers, adjustable spanners etc it is as well to be aware that some gear hangers will tend to bend in eye itself if you use an adjustable spanner on them. For this reason the best method is usually to clamp something through the eye itself, i.e. an axle with a track nut both sides of the eye. This also prevents the threads in the eye from being damaged.
If you wanted to make a tool (rather than have a potentially useful spare wheel) then I think you can make one easily enough; an old hub with M10x1 axle thread (eg shimano cassette hub with solid axle), an M10 threaded stunt peg from a bmx (or alternately a length of thick-walled tube that will fit over the axle and act as a lever), a strip of steel sheet (say 1mm x 50mm x 650mm), four M3 threaded 16mm long nuts and bolts.
The method would be to fold the steel strip in half, then drill holes through (the strip and the flange) that each end of the strip can be bolted to a flange in two places. This will give you a gauging point to check against the rim.
The stunt peg (or tube), once attached to free end of the hub, will make a lever that can allow the gear hanger to be reset.
Possibly you could substitute something else (eg mudguard stays) for the gauging part of the tool; anything that can be bolted to the flange and then is stiff enough to provided a datum point (rather than a lever) is good enough.
Note that any 'tool' that uses a hub thus is arguably better than a commercial tool; whilst a commercial tool can wear or be sloppy from the start, hub bearings can always be adjusted back to zero clearance. In addition should the centre pin in a tool become bent, it is pretty much 'game over', (if you can actually detect the error). By contrast if the axle in the 'tool-hub' becomes bent this is both easy to detect and correct if needs be.
Finally it is as well to understand how accurate the setting needs to be. Hanger alignment is jut one thing that helps a system to work OK and it is the cumulative effect of many such things that affects how the system actually works. IIRC the shimano specifications allow a small degree of 'toe in' and 'negative camber' and in fact the system may work slightly better if there is some rather than none of both these things. On a 700C wheel this means that (if you are aiming for 0 to 1 degree of each) you are trying to get the end of the tool to lie within a chosen band ~5mm wide (each 1mm is about 0.2 degrees). [NB Plenty of people have set their gear hanger 'wrong' deliberately so that it helps correct for a slightly bent rear mech, too...
]cheers
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~