26.10.2020 Simple Campag Athena "11" front derailleur mod.

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Monday 26th 48-52F, breezy with a heavy overcast. Rain or rain expected. Then cancelled. 

A walk to the lanes under leaden skies. Only a light SW breeze. There were no gulls, at all, visible today. A solitary heron and then another went over. I was just wondering where all the birds were when some geese broke the silence between roaring traffic. One might have hoped for a little more tidiness in their aerial arrangements, but what can you do?

My new front changer [Shimano FD4700] has arrived. It soon  proved to move no further out than the Campag Athena. Grr! A waste of another £25.

Both front mechs. were of the braze-on type. Note that I have filed the matching, 32mm, tube clamp to give a more relaxed angle. Than the steep seat tube [75°] of my Trykit trike. Without the lowered angle the front cage was tipped up to the horizontal much too far against the chainring. It looked completely ludicrous and spoilt the front gear change.

Whatever I tried I could not get the 4700 to change onto the larger, outer chainring. Raising and lowering the mech provided no improvement. So I am soaking the chain in cleaner during lunch while I decide what to next.

It was impossible to see the hidden, limit stop faces on the Shimano FD4700. So I looked again at the Campagnolo Athena 11. This was much easier to examine thanks to its nicely open construction. The Campag build quality totally eclipses the Shimano front mech. The cage is of brushed, stainless steel rather than Shimano's, cheap looking chrome.

The absolute limit on outward movement proved not to be the Hi stop screw. It was one of the parallelogram links. This was  stopping the cable clamping/activation arm from lowering any further under cable tension. 

There was plenty of meat on the cable clamping arm. Not so much on the link. So I filed a small flat on the arm under the clamping screw bulge in the casting. I kept extending the mechanism in my hand to be certain I wasn't removing too much material. Nor in the wrong place. Naturally this work would invalidate any guarantee but I have had the Athena for ages. This mechanical mechanism was discontinued in March 2020.

Voila! Instant extra, outward reach! The image [Above right] shows where the two parts contact each other at full outward activation. Not easy to see because they are in contact with each other.

I had to reset the lever to slacken the cable before retensioning to achieve full extension.

Now I can reliably move the chain onto the outer ring from the middle of the cassette and on outwards. It is very unlikely I'd want to change to the outer ring when I am in the lower gears of the cassette. Usually it is just a case of increasing my speed downhill.

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