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I have recently converted hard tail from 3x9 to 1x11...I have had to install my chainring on the outer side of the cranks due to contact with the frame by the ring when installed on the inside.
Every thing is great, shifting is smooth and silent and the bike rides really well. The only issue is when in 1st or 2nd and I back pedal the chain jumps down into 3rd or 4th....I think the chain line is wrong...is there anything I can do to remedy this apart from not back pedalling.???
I think a bit of ropey back-pedalling in low gears is common in 1x11 - I had it on mine when I set it up and recall thinking it looked a bit poor, then promptly forgot about if for the next two years - none issue.
Your crankset is probably quite old, so you could always just buy a new 1x11 one as a bit of an upgrade if you wanted to optimise the chainline. Cranks wear well so could get a good second hand one for not very much.
3x chainsets have their middle ring position a tad more outboard than 2x chainsets. Your ring must be impressively big to foul when in that position! But on the big ring side it will be far out. Groovy! But it is going to be graunchy in the low gears.
Depending on your BB you could bring your chainline back a bit, but not the whole way, by using different spacers, ie if it is an HT II type with two spacers on the drive side and one on the non-drive side, put one on the ds and so on.
Cheers Garry....I reckon i can live with it and take my time to get the right cranks....i need to get my head around the technical spec of different cranks.
First thing to do is get your ruler out and figure out what chainline you've got at the moment.
As stated above, the problem is fairly common even with "proper" 1x cranksets, because they use a conservatively wide chainline at the front in order to avoid exactly this sort of clearance issue, aligning the chainring some way outboard of the centre of the cassette.