Wolftooth Tanpan, XT mech with Ultegra levers. Poor shifting.

Hey guys.
A mate has tasked me to fit his new XT M8000 11spd mech to his CX steed. A recent muddy race took his ultegra mech way past it’s limits.

It runs ultegra 6800 levers so a wolftooth Tanpan device is needed to sort the shift ratio. Simples.

Install was fine but shifting is poor. 🙁

Its fine going up the cassette if I dial in some cable tension but then poor on the way back down so I have to back off the tension, going back up again needs me to add the cable tension I removed to help it change down the cassette.

Has anyone else had these issues.?

New cables?

Two things that spring to mind are cable drag or a bent mech hanger.

+1 sticky cable or top jockey needs to closer to the sprockets.

The b screw is as far out as possible to bring the mech high as it can go. (Although still a fair big distance from the cassette IMO)

Yes I think my next plan is to replace the inner cable as suggested. I’ll report back this evening.
Although the inner was shifting fine before installing the Tanpan.

Cheers for the ideas guys.

Silly question, but you do have the 11 speed version of the Tanpan?

Is it the newer tanpan with the grub screw to grip the cable?

Ok.. yep 11 speed version with the grub screw.

After pulling the old cable out I found a kink that would be introducing some friction. Replacing with a new inner has solved it. Odd that it was not noticed before the Tanpan install.

Shifting is now smoooooooth..

Cheers all..!

Pleased to hear you got it sorted and it was a simple fix.

you can also fit a 13t or 15t top jockey to bring the top jockey closer to the sprockets, to improve shifting. That’s what I use on my road bikes that run MTB mechs. KCNC and others do them.

Kink in the cable or outer ferrule? I’ve seen the latter a few times, particularly with plastic ferrules.

Tired; kink in the inner cable.
Only obvious when I pulled it out. Surprising that it was not giving issues with the old mech to be honest.

Reggiegasket; that’s a fine idea but it’s shifting good now, although the b screw is all the way out so hardly giving him any room for future adjustment.