After being off the bike for a few months my XT 11sp shifter is sticking when moving up the cassette. The lever will move the 4 clicks with a good push but not return to the normal position and has to be pulled back. Shifting down the cassette is perfect as it should be. I have removed the outer covers to have a poke around but they don’t seem serviceable.
To give an idea of the level of force needed, without the shifter on the bars for leverage I struggle to shift the lever just held in my hand.

Probably not much I can do but just wondered if anyone has had the same, tried some googling but not much comes up.

Cheers
Sonnyjim.

Spray it with wd40. Probably grease gone hard.

My SRAM X01 shifter doesn’t do this. True story.

Spray it with wd40. Probably grease gone hard.

Don’t just spray it, flush it out! A good 10 second squirt into the hole where you change the cable. Try disc brake cleaner first too, if you have any.
It needs to be pissing out of the bottom of the shifter and you might need to do it 2-3 times, actuating the shifter a lot between each dose.

My SRAM X01 shifter doesn’t do this. True story.

SRAM shifters never go sticky. They just pack up at random. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Shimano last for ages and it’s rare that flushing them out doesn’t get them going again 🙂

Cheers, I’ll give it a spray see what happens, btw it was clean and the grease was all fine inside, that was the reason I opened it in the first place, I was expecting grime to be the issue.

Cheers

Cheers PeterPoddy, that did the trick. Took 20 odd minutes of working to get it going and I now stink of wd40 but all is well again. If only that would work on my knees it would never get time to seize up again.

Cheers

@sonnyjiim

Out of interest, do you turn your bike upside down when you wash it?

No I don’t Dirtydog, nor do I use a pressure washer. The shifter looked perfect inside, it’s not had much use, the grease looked like new. No grit/gunge etc, just presume it’s been lack of use due to my shit knees.

Which reminds me that I didn’t refit the put the cap back on the hole for fitting the cable. Quick job for half time in the footie!

Nice one, just trying to understand what the issue was, dry grease seems unlikely on such a new shifter.

It’s hard to pinpoint what was stiff, it’s pretty busy with springs and ratchets. Possibly good idea it can’t be stripped down, lots of ‘ping fuckits’ in there. They’re not watertight so possibly moisture entering and being left has caused some corrosion.

I had exactly the same issues, but as it was under warranty l took it back to the shop hoping they would put a new shifter on, (I hate the stiff feel of the 11 speed shifters ) but they fixed it. While I was waiting I tryed all the bikes with XT m800 and all but 1 were stiff.I Much prefer the feel of shimano 10 speed.

It is their ploy to get you all over to electric shifting

I have the same issue on my Fat bike, its made better with GT85 blasting every now and then, should really take back to the LBS for a warranty replacement. But its not too much of an issue and suspect its lack of maintenance my end and a horrid winter