I have an old mountain bike that i would like to start riding again. I rode it today but there is something wrong. It will not shift out of the highest gear. When i move the shifter it makes some ticking noised but does not shift. As you can imagine its a pain in the ass riding in high gear everywhere I think it has something to do with the rusty cable lol but I truly know nothing about bikes. I would really like to fix this myself and not take it to a shop. Can anyone help?
chris, it sounds like the derailer is bent. just eyeball the derailer it should be parallel to wheel. oil cable derailer and chain. good luck
Put the derailuer in the lowest possible gear (6, or whatever. the hardest one to pedal in) remove all tension from the line by unscrewing it from the derailuer. There will be two screws labled H and L sitting on the derailuer somewhere. You will need to turn these screws to have the gears on the dearailuer line up exactly with the 6th gear on your sprocket. Once you have it all lined up make sure you shifter is selecting 6th gear, and pull all tension out of the line. Simply hook the line back up to the derailuer and as long as the cable isnt loose you should be good to go. If its your actual shifter that jammed, you will need to pull a little plug thats covering a hole (usually on the bottom) and make sure the other end of your shifter cable, which should have a little ball of metal on it, is not catching anything. If it is simply pull the cable out and fish it through your shifter to get that little metal ball to catch on the right spot.
I adjusted the H and L screws. It didnt seem like it moved at all. If I change the shifter to the highest gear(1) and put a lot of force into it it will shift from 7 to 5 but it refuses to go any higher than that.
I'd check the chainrings and cassette to make sure that they are all straight. Then move to derailer, then check Sheldon Brown-Bicycle Technical Information and if that doesn't work go to the local bike co-op and get it fixed for free or damn near it.