The inner cable for my ancient Ultegra 6600 (roadie) front derailleur snapped on a ride the other day – thought it would be an easy fix but I’ve replaced the cable and it’s really stiff to change rings and there’s a lot of tension on the cable when on the big ring. Like so much tension I feel like I’m going to snap the brake lever when shifting up. Prior to the cable snap it was shifting easily so I don’t think the mech is seized.

Now I seem to recall that a few years ago I had to replace the brake lever and the only one available was one for a triple ring, I’m running a double. I did manage to get it to work but can’t remember how I set it up. I expect this is the cause of the problem! Should I be setting it up so that it uses click/position 1 & 2 of the lever, or 2 & 3? If that makes any sense?

Hopefully there’s something really obvious that I’m missing like cable routing or something, but I can’t see anything.

Have a look at the cable routing at the derailleur. Look at the Shimano technical document you have to route it a certain way to get it to work. If you route it wrongly you have no leverage.

Just checked the manual, pretty sure I’ve got it routed the same as it shows.

Round the tab?

Yeah I’ve now got it routed the same as is shown in the manual. Still feels a bit shit but it’s better. There’s just so much tension in the cable. I’ve re adjusted the H&L stops which helped a bit too. I know I should really be using the proper double shifter rather than a triple but prior to the cable snapping it all worked much smoother than this even with a rusted to **** cable!

Using a triple is fine, some groupsets only used triple shifters, even with double chainsets. 1-2 or 2-3 both ok.

There must be something up, pics?

You did have the shifter set in the small ring when changing The cable? My money is on it should be set up in small/middle but you have it at middle /large. What ever way you have it i say try the other way for correct tension.

I had this before- I had the cable going into the bolt/clamp from the wrong side. So the cable was basically pointing the wrong way. Tiny mistake but made a big difference.

Yeah, sounds like you’ve got it set up so the first click takes you from granny to big, then the 2nd click just adds a load of extra tension to the cable?

Maybe set up having already clicked the shifter up once, so the shifter thinks you are in middle when you are actually in granny, and so there will only be one click left for shifting in to big.

Did you change the outer cable as well?

There are trim positions on the lever as well. If the cable tension is out, you may be using a full “gearchange” click instead of a “trimming” click which could add a bunch of tension to the big ring position. Also check for cable routing issues, like crossed with the rear gear or brake cable, not seated properly in the under-BB cable guide, etc., and check the old cable did not leave metal shards inside the shifter if that’s where it broke. If it’s that stiff to move, something must be binding.

https://si.shimano.com/pdfs/si/SI-6K20A-001-ENG.pdf

All sorted now cheers all! Just needed to click the lever in one click before tightening the cable, so the shifter is now “seeing” to shift between middle and big ring, rather than granny and middle/big. Of course I’ve buggered the inner with all this faffing so will now need a new one!

Get a new inner and outer, if you haven’t replaced the outer.

Don’t think I need a new outer, the cable still slides through it without any friction so seems a bit of a waste? Unless there’s another reason for replacing it. Just been out for a ride and all my gears are shifting nicely now.