Cycling UK Forum

Hi All,

I hope that everyone is keeping safe & well.

I have a Genesis Day One Alfine 8 bike on which I've had perennial problems with the gears slipping ever since I've had the bike. Now I have previously asked questions on here and I've received loads of useful information and recommendations which has been great and even in person support which has been absolutely invaluable. At this point I now have workable solutions but it does require very regular adjustment of a barrel cable adjuster to constantly check and make adjustments to make sure that things are in line and working.

Now at this time of the year I normally take the bike at least partially apart and give it a good clean, use some frame protector before putting it back together with some tyres on that are more suitable for winter. Therefore I thought that I'd try and use this opportunity to tackle one other element of the Shimano Alfine Internal Hub Gear set up to see if it helps.

On the gear cable you have a nut/bolt which you fix onto the gear cable and then this nut/bolt slots into the moving part of the IGH in order that it moves when you change gear. Now there's a certain distance that this bolt is meant to secured onto the cable but off the top of my head I can't remember what it is because it's so long since I've done it. But whenever I've done this part of the job in the past I've been trying to tighten the bolt on whilst holding a ruler and when I secure the nut it's probably never been that precise.

Therefore this time (and I appreciate that this might be overkill) but when buying something else that I needed I also on a bit of a spur of the moment decision decided to buy the Shimano Alfine TL-S700-B Inner Cable Fixing Bolt Setting Tool with the idea that I'll hopefully get this nut in exactly the right place from now on. Here's a link to the tool that I mean:-

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/tools/shimano-alfine-tls700b-inner-cable-fixing-bolt-setting-tool-y72a06000/

But I'm just wondering if anyone has ever used one of these and has any tips on actually using it to do this job? Or does anyone know of a link to a good guide or video on how to use this because I've started searching but couldn't immediately find a useful instruction guide.

My apologies if this is a bit of a stupid question but I'm not very technically minded and so idiots guides are always good.

Thanks in advance if anyone has any advice that they can share.

Best regards,

John

When I got my Al-fee-nay hub gear and sat down to work out how to set it up, I spotted this tool and came to the conclusion that it is just a jig that allows the user to easily set the required distance between cable stop and bolt at 184mm. I have used a caliper gauge to make that measurement accurately enough, but you could achieve the same result with a ruler or a builder's tape-measure equally effectively.

For Alfine 8, put into gear 1.

Turn cable adjuster at the shifter all the way in and then, out half a turn (*). Pull cable at the hub end by hand to remove any kinks/slack.

Then, measure from end of outer cable 100mm. Mark dot with felt tip. This is the centre pint for the bolt.

For avoidance of doubt, you want 100mm where the attached image shows 101mm. Don't measure 101, this is for Nexus hubs. Don't forget gear 1 - this is crucial.

* The half turn allows for micro adjustment when installed to perfect the yellow dot alignment.

I have two Alfine 8 hubs and they work flawlessly with this method.

Edit: following Brucey's post and revisiting the tech doc, I've amended the above to gear '1' not 4. Needs to be in 4 to fine tune the alignment of the dots. It's been a while since I did my last cable change.

Re Simon's note about 184mm, this for Alfine 11.

the cable length setting varies with the hub and the cassette joint used.

My understanding is that TL-S700-B tool is only suitable for use with hubs SG-7001-8 and SG-7000-8.
.
IIRC your hub is different to this; if so, you need a different tool.

If you have cassette joint CJ-8S20 (which fits all older model 8s Nexus and 8s Alfine 'low normal' hubs) then this SI techdoc tells you exactly how to set the cable up.

https://si.shimano.com/api/publish/storage/pdf/en/si/6JB0A/SI-6JB0A-000-ENG.pdf

NB to set the cable length correctly (so that it is within the range of the barrel adjuster) you must set the shifter to 'gear 1'.
.
When you have installed the cable the yellow mark settings are checked in gear 4.

hth

cheers

BTW some hubs require a non-standard setting.



in theory the marks should align in gear 4. Yesterday I worked on a bike where the setting above was correct; half a turn on the barrel adjuster either way from this position resulted in problems with gear selection.

cheers

BTW some hubs require a non-standard setting.

So, what tips d'you recommend for the fine-tuning? I carefully measured the relevant ferrule-to-centre of bolt and just as carefully aligned the two yellow marks when in 6 (my hub's an SG-S700), but find that there are one or two shifts that miss the gear, resulting in a jarring crack - not every time, but just now-and-then. Maybe mine's one of those non-standard examples Brucey refers to. How to do the fine-tuning? Is it best achieved in the workshop, on the bike stand, or out on the road, running up and down all the gears? Any hints or tips?

without hub disassembly, trial and error is the method here. IME the most critical shifts (in an 8s hub) are normally into gears 4 and 5. If you get those right then the others will usually be OK.

However in Alfine 11 it can be around gear 3 where the rot sets in first. I don't know why this should be exactly.

In 8s hubs the sliding clutch only moves on the 4-5 shift and when things go bad inside these hubs, the two (separate) shifting mechanisms inside the hub (for the pawl lifts and sliding clutch respectively) can become unsynchronised, in which case the hub can't be set up using cable adjustments alone. The correct synchronisation of the clutches can be checked with a shifter connected to a bare axle assembly. Fixing this fault is quite another matter.

If you determine that a given hub/CJ combination needs a non-standard setup, it is a really good idea to take a photo as an aide memoir and/or to make a mark (eg a fresh cut using a Dremel tool) on the CJ. The CJ can wear, so if you fit a different CJ expect the marks to line up differently too.

cheers

Hi All,

Many thanks for all of the replies above which are greatly appreciated!

In the end my best laid plans for working on the bike over last weekend were ultimately scuppered by an alternative plan involving a list of household & garden jobs given to me which outranked the job of working on the bike.

I'll have a detailed read through all of the above and fingers crossed I can get time next weekend to work on the bike.

Many thanks because the help is is much appreciated.

Cheers,

John