Wow, thanks very much to all for the replies!
@bencooper – yeah I was pretty much expecting there to be problems when I wasn’t able to put it all back together again.
@brokensoul True! 🙂
@leftyboy I’m pretty sure i didnt mix up the parts – just left out the 2 metal washers that go either side of the jockey wheel…but i’ll have a look to make sure.
@cyclical “Once you have put the metal washers in you really have to nip the mech together with your other hand to pull everything together before the screw will catch in the thread.”
Exactly what I tried to do but I couldn’t get it to bite :-/
@VanMan Awesome links! thanks a million.
In the meantime here are 2 photos to illustrate a bit more the problem I have.
In the first you can see how there is a lot of slack in the chain when I have it on the smallest cog.
And in the second, you can see how the arm of the derailleur is completely curled up.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/st4rqvjf4264a5t/IMG_0093.JPG
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0iiw7xmgrf3sn4x/IMG_0094.JPG
PS: Let me know if you can’t access the photos. On clicking the “IMG” button it asked me for a url – thats why I used dropbox.