I’m building up a new Leader 735TT frame with my old 9 speed Dura Ace/Ultegra mix.
Bottom Bracket: DA 9 sp double (68x109)
Front derailleur: Ultegra 9sp double
Here’s the problem. The FD (braze-on) seems to sit too far out. Without even stringing the cabling, it forces the chain onto the big ring. I can’t adjust it laterally, except, of course, with the limit screws, but even if I completely remove the low gear limit screw, the cage doesn’t shift far enough inward to shift to the small ring. Besides, even if I did this, I can’t tighten the high gear limit screw enough to prevent the chain from shifting off the big ring.
My first thought was that the derailleur was bent, but it isn’t. Second, I assumed I had the wrong size BB. But I don’t think so. The Leader Store says the frame fits “standard” 68 mm, whatever that means. I’d thought the 68x118 BB was for triple cranks, while the 68x109 was for doubles. I have a double crankset. Am I missing something?
Do you have the bottom bracket cups installed on the wrong sides? This is the only thing I can think of…The derailleur should move much closer to down tube than necessary, try another deraileur and see if that helps.
I’m pretty sure the cups are on properly. The BB came right off my old road bike, and the cups are on the same side as they were on that. BB worked fine on the road bike.
I’m pretty sure the BB is 68x109. Is there a shorter size? I’ve only seen 109 and 118.
I’m pretty sure the cranks are on properly, although, I’ll check that again.
you can’t reverse the cups on an english BB, as the threads run in completely different directions. a “standard” 68 mm BB probably in their words mean an english-threaded BB. for shimano, 68x109 is indeed for double cranksets.
steve, from what you write, my best guess with your leader frame (which i think is not a super high-end frame) is that there may be a major problem with the way leader’s manufacturer welded on the front der. braze on mount. talk to the retailer where you purchased the frame?
I suspect that the leader frame is the problem. Their is probably not anything defective, but as frame tubes get “fatter” less wiggle room is available as room gets tight. My guess is that the seat tube is fat and moves the fd out too far. The only solution is to use a triple BB with a double crank. Its a bit of a cludge but will work ok. Just to double check can you measure how far out the FD mounted on your old frame vs the leader frame?
Hello, Its a solution to the posters problem and admittedly is a bit half assed. Part of the problems is shimanos. It seems with every new group tolerances, q-factors, and clearance becomes more of a problem. Back with 5 speed rears and skinny steel frame tubes virtually any stuff would work, now not so much. Even on my cannondale I had to grind the front derailler bracket to make it work.
Yeah. I wouldn’t think Leader would make an inherently flawed product. There must be either a manufacturing defect on this frame, or else it’s Assembler error (which is the most likely candidate).
hey, i totally agree that there all kinds of ways to MAKE it work. but i was saying that one should not have to do those things.
about your cannondale, i would never have ground down my deraill. to make it work. there is no way that cannondale parts assemblers do that every time they put components on each frame (they would go crazy if they did, and profit would be eaten up by the labor costs of something so tedious). and there is no way you should have to either.
just my opinion. you pay the designers to do something, not sit on their asses. it should work right, and they should find a way to make it work right.
I have a buddy that had a similar problem. he bought the complete leader tri bike with ultegra.
they noticed the ultegra front derailer was not fitting/working so well. another buddy of mine got the same bike with dura ace. no problems there. so we had to assume it was the ultegra derailer. luckily we live here in San Diego, so we called Sal at the leader warehouse, told him about the problem and ask him to switch the ultegra with a dura ace. He did…Guess what??? It solved the problem.
We’ve seen a few instances of this with Leader frames. It may be the position of the front derailleur on the seat tube, or more correctly, the position of the mount on the frame.
The fix for this may be to go to a wider bottom bracket spindle to stand the crank farther away from the BB shell.
This is a bit of a cobbled-up fix though, as it makes your “Q” factor wider, degrades your chain line and renders your “big/big” (53/23 or whatever you are using) crossover gear much less useable.
In my case I was using non standard parts, white ind BB topline cranks, ultegra FD, and I like a narrow q factor, so i really wasn’t worried about making a little modification. Admittedly it would be nice if everything fits perfectly but with todays parts their are lots of little inconsistancies.