How to tune/adjust a rear Shimano Derailleur

by RL Policar

Categories: How To's, Main, Mountain Biking
Posted on January 3, 2009

Popularity: 23% [?]

Tags: how to adjust a rear derailleur / how to fix a bicycle / how to tune a rear derailleur / shimano LX deore rear derailleur

There are 9 Comments to this article

Jay says:
01/03/2009

Great job as always RL.

Quick question: Because the bike will many times act differently on a bike stand than it does when mounted, what would you suggest to a person that perhaps is running into shifting problems when they are on the trail? (after they have adjusted it in the stand)

BTW – troubles occur most frequently when climbing on a full suspension bike

RL Policar says:
01/03/2009

Thanks Jay,

I’d suggest riding on a flat street, go through your gears and fine tune it with the adjuster barrel on the shifter pod. But make sure that you only do half turns so you can dial it in just right.

Ghost Rider says:
01/04/2009

Don’t forget to adjust high/low limit screws and “B” tension screw(if applicable). BEFORE adjusting cable tension. If you don’t do those first, the rest is meaningless.

RL says:
01/04/2009

You only need to touch those if your chain jumps the cog and into the spokes or if your chain is on the small cog and its really rubbing bad on the pulley/ or the derailleur is pulling towards the drop out.

Ghost Rider says:
01/04/2009

Check the Park Tool repair database…H and L and B-tension screws get adjusted first. THEN, the indexing adjustment. If H and L are off, no amount of cable tension tinkering is going to get you good shifting!

RL says:
01/04/2009

As I mentioned, you don’t have to. It worked just fine in the video.