XTR shadow

[Fibre-Lyte]

It's not something we normally do, but a local customer came into the factory with a demolished XTR shadow medium cage derailleur. He asked if we could do anything with it, as we are usually know for just the inner plates, but the cost of replacement for the standard plates was very high. After a little bit of disassembly we realised that they are a fairly straight forward swap, so we machined two new plates (outer and inner) and it's back together almost as good as new (may be better ).

May be time to have a look at the other XTR shadow mechs and may be the 7900?

[Boonen]

That looks pretty good, I think the way these are attached is quite different from the 7900 though?

[dunlinii]

If i had any of those mechs i would buy it.

[Fibre-Lyte]

That looks pretty good, I think the way these are attached is quite different from the 7900 though?

We haven't had a good look at a 7900 yet so I'm not sure how they are attached. With them both being carbon plates as standard the fixing shouldn't be too much different, or is it?

[Boonen]

Stephen, the biggest difference between the shadow derailleurs and the regular XTR and 7900 derailleurs is that on the first one's you bolt the plate on by sticking the bolt in from the outside and fixing it to the threads on the plate itself. On the regular derailleurs the thread is in the derailleur itself and you stick in the bolt from the wheel side. I'm not that familiar with the shadow derailleurs but can imagine they thread is fairly easy to attach to the carbon from the wheel side in a similar way that you attach the thread inserts on your back plates? The end of the spring then fits into a hole in the carbon? On the regular derailleurs you'd have to fix a sleeve to the carbon plate that then inserts into the derailleur. Just from looking at it I'd think the way the plates on the regular derailleur are fixed to the derailleur itself they would have to be able to withstand much higher forces compared to the way they are mounted to the shadow derailleurs. If you compare with the record derailleur where the plate is carbon from stock, they are attached to the derailleur in a very similar version and the steel sleeve is double riveted to the carbon to take up these forces.

I'm sure if Shimano can make a stock carbon cage it would be a piece of cake for you guys to do the same though

[nuttymango]

...so we machined two new plates (outer and inner...

So will these be available for purchase from your website?

[Fibre-Lyte]

The inner cage is already available. As the outer isn't a straightforward swap we'll offer an option where you can send your derailleur to us and we'll swap both plates for you in house. If you think that you have the ability/mechanical know how to swap the outer plate then we'll quite happily supply the plate on its own.