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Can you bend a rear...
 

Can you bend a rear mech?

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[#12825051]

Not the mech hanger but the mech itself

I recently sent a bike I sold. Shifted fine when I dismantled it, removed the 2 ride old rear mech to avoid damage in transit. Lady who bought it took it to her lbs who reassembled it but told her the rear mech was bent and needed replacing

Now if they’d said the rear hanger I could almost beleive that (although it’s a steel frame so unlikely), but the mech itself?

I’m dubious that the shop isn’t taking the pee pee. Have asked her to send me the old mech back, and if it’s actually broken I’ll refund her for the replacement

I assume it found its way into the lbs box of spare however but we’ll see


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:02 pm
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Yes, and annoyingly it's not always even visible, just a slight knock.

I've got a box of the bliming things (all SRAM, shimano just never seem to have this issue), usually you either get it not shifting at all into the last few gears because the linkage pivots bind up, or it's like a bent hanger and it won't index at both ends at the same time.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:05 pm
zerocool reacted
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Yes you can. I've bent the jockey wheel section before - visibly bent inwards with the rest of the mech and hanger being fine.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:05 pm
zerocool reacted
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They can twist and buckle if you smash them on rocks or get sticks jammed in them. IME it's usually pretty obvious that they are damaged.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:06 pm
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[double post]


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:07 pm
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n.b. the hanger is there to protect the frame, it's not intended to protect the mech. Because before SRAM completely lost touch with reality most rear mechs cost only a tiny fraction of what the frame did.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:09 pm
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I've had them bend before. Can be as simple as the bike falling over when stood up, or putting them in the boot of a car etc.

Tends to be when you just cant get perfect indexing, or always have some annoying friction. Just have to be that noticeable, but can be very difficult to ever get a mech to line up again once out of alignment


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:15 pm
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Interesting. Well I’ll await the mechs return to see if it works. If not I guess I’m buying another.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:15 pm
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Yes it is possible...and if you have a 2020 XT rear mech, it is possible to also bend it back into position without too much effort by hand - absolutely cheese-tastic mech cage!


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:20 pm
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Yes, I've bent a few. Very annoying when the purposely designed £10 hanger is perfectly straight but the £80 mech is bent after a knock.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:25 pm
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They definitely can be bent and, in fact, some of them are designed bent to start with.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:28 pm
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n.b. the hanger is there to protect the frame

Not for about 20 years. It's just an easier way of sticking things onto the bike than welding /gluing / moulding it.

Very annoying when the purposely designed £10 hanger

If it were meant to break, it would, it's not. It's meant to hold your mech.

Yes op, per the various others, they can be bent.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:37 pm
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Yes; Shimano. In contrast to the above and just in my own experience, SRAM tend to just break, rather than bending..
I must have tagged my hardtail's rear XT on something a couple of weeks back; not a mark on it and the hanger was only a tiny bit out of alignment. However, the main parallelogram of the mech was bent enough that the 'nose' that should meet the lowest gear limit screw was fouling the opposite side of the cage. It worked totally fine in 9 out of 10 gears, just wouldn't reach the lowest. Took me quite a while to spot the problem too.


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:37 pm
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Just heard from the lady. She challenged the mechanic and apparently the mech was fine, just needed adjusted so a new mech wasn’t fitted at all🤔

Not entirely sure why she thought it had been replaced as surely she would have looked at the receipt for the work?

Anyway, as you were..


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:40 pm
leffeboy reacted
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Very easily. It’s how I write off most of my mechs


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:41 pm
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Apparently the lbs also had to remove the tyres and scrape out the dried up sealant before injecting in the fresh stuff I sent with the bike!!

Something tells me they were well and truely taking the piss on this job..


 
Posted : 17/05/2023 4:48 pm
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Apparently the lbs also had to remove the tyres and scrape out the dried up sealant before injecting in the fresh stuff I sent with the bike!!

Something tells me they were well and truely taking the piss on this job..

And this is why I struggle to find the will to sell stuff on ebay, especially when you have to post it. Just seems like more trouble than it is worth. Especially as at this point, you will have survived the myriad of stupid questions like "what size is the size large black Giant Anthem you have for sale and "bidding it as £900 at the moment with 30 people interested, will you take £250 and I'll collect this afternoon". That's before ebay take their cut including on the postage!


 
Posted : 18/05/2023 10:25 am