I am replacing my rear gripshift cable and am encountering a difficulty. I managed to wrap it and close it, but when I try shifting at first it’s very difficult. But it’s only shifting into that position each time that requires lots of force. The rest feels smooth. The pin did fall out on me while working, but I think I inserted it correctly. Is it possible something is broken or bent. I know this isn’t a typical problem, but if you have any possible solutions please let me know. Thank you

Beware, when adjusting the front derailer cable tighten it just snug or it will break when you ever adjust it later.

My trek 7100 is just over six months old and I adjusted the front derailer myself.(I am of course smarter than the bike shop) And wanted a more custom tuning.

Lee M.

For example, if you have a section of cable housing to the front of the bike that won’t stay bracketed, lay it there, and so on. Then after you get the new cable threaded through the brake lever/shifter, you can work from there. Of course it should go without saying to stick to one line at a time.

The shifter hookup is perhaps the hardest part of the job, but if you’re organized, the rest of the job is very easy compared to other things on a bike.

Thanks for all of your hard work with this site. I’m currently working on this particualr project and am glad that you used an older version of the SRAM grip-shift similar to my model (the newer models, as John pointed out 07/20/2008, don’t need to be taken apart).

If I may point out a couple of things, some of the re-assembly is rather quick and it might be helpful to slow down how to wrap the new cable into the shifter; I had a tough time finding where the old cable head was seated since I was a little anxious and was being extremely careful not to dislodge the odd shaped spring as I was poking around, (ha ha) it was some time before I realized there was a feed hole on the inner side of the shifter where the cable head sits! Upon viewing the video again, I now see that this can be seen at about Step 5. These points aren’t negative criticism, I just hope to give usable feedback from the perspective of someone very new to working on his own bike (I had another confused moment while working on the rear derailleur adjustment which I’ll post in the comments to that video).

One tip I have for others trying this repair, who are also keeping their cable housing and who may have trouble remembering how the housing sits on the bike, is to keep the housing and ferrules in place with some tape or zip ties. Sorry for the long comment.

Cheers