Yesterday I posted about how my front derailleur fell off. The heli-coil seperated from the derailluer body and that was it.
This morning I went into my LBS. Fortuanately, I ran into a guy who was sympathetic to my plight. He said this is the third DA derailleur that he’d seen do this, and assured me that Shimano would warrantee it.
He went digging around in the back room to see what he could find as a cheap replacement. He came out with a Sachs 5 8spd mountain derailluer that had been scratched. I expressed concern that it might not work with my DA9 kit. Nonsense, he assured me, the specificity of components is only marketing hype.
I took the derailleur home and mounted it on my bike. The problem with using a mountain derailleur on a road double is that the cage goes down too far in the rear and hits the chainring teeth even when it is adjusted as far up as it’ll go. It’s designed for something like a 44t big ring instead of a 53t.
Solution? Grind it down and bend it. I took out the screw that held the cage together and bent the outer portion about 3mm upward.
Worked like a charm, pedaled it in the trainer and then around the block. No problems. Just make sure that the limit screws are set as a triple derailleur has a whole lot of travel. The white tape on the end of the cable is for extra style points. 
And the whole bike:
