How does a jockey wheel crack?

[simonov]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Wow, lots of riding, good on ya! As a service oriented shop owner, I got to see the ‘goods and others’ of a lot of stuff. Our warranty frequency for sram(particularly early gen road stuff) was 4-5 times number 2, which was shimano STI levers, particularly 6500 and 6600...more than a few failures out of the box. Only a couple of Campagnolo(we were a Pro shop)...a rear wheel, a broken rear der carbon body (jra?)...a broken thumb button on a new, 2009 lever....just my experience.

PM me if you want to hear the story of ‘taco ed’ of sram...some/most here don’t want to hear it again.

Ha! I may take you up on that one day. I don't doubt they had some (many) issues in the early years. Maybe I've just gotten lucky, but I'm hard on my stuff and their gear has been fine. That said, the 11 speed stuff is much, much better than the 10 speed stuff. My campy groupset has been fine, but I've definitely been disappointed with their wheels, though. Again, that's just my experience. I'm sure that I'd feel differently if I had to deal with a disproportionate amount of warranty work as a shop owner. I have some experience with retail, though not bikes, and taking time (and money) to fix a company's issues sucks.

[topflightpro]

Not sure why it happens, but I've broken several pulleys on my Red RDs. I've replaced them in with some aluminum ones.

[foo_fighter]

Does anyone have any 5mm to 4mm reducer bushings?
If anyone has any spares let me know!

I tried google and mcmaster carr but couldn't find anything.

I had no idea the top pulley for SRAM is 4mm and the lower one 5mm. Both replacement pulleys I bought were for 5mm only.
I noticed some kits come with reducer bushings like:

But my kit didn't.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by foo_fighter

Does anyone have any 5mm to 4mm reducer bushings?
If anyone has any spares let me know!

I tried google and mcmaster carr but couldn't find anything.

I had no idea the top pulley for SRAM is 4mm and the lower one 5mm. Both replacement pulleys I bought were for 5mm only.
I noticed some kits come with reducer bushings like:

But my kit didn't.

Cuz a 4mm bolt is lighter than a 5mm bolt, of course.

[dddd]

Replacing pulleys with aftermarket can be complicated by bolt size and also by the new pulley's width where the plates clamp against the "hub" of the pulley.

I liked the ones you showed above, I was able to drill out the alloy "hub caps" for the 6mm bolts used on my Simplex rear derailer, but then had to shim/washer under the head of the bolts since the thicker, unthreaded shank of the now-too-long bolt bottomed against the threads in the inner cage plate.
Mine were found with just 10 teeth and no holes, but in the right color, and work just perfectly with the 9s chain I'm using on this old 10-speed (as in 5x2) Austrian relic.
Note the original semi-compact 52/36t chainrings on this late-1960's crankset, gets me through the foothills with just a 13-24t out back.

[bigbill]

In the late 80's, Shimano came out with a short cage XT derailleur. It shifted quickly but tended to snap. Myself and others ended up taking Shimano Light Action short cage derailleurs and installing Bullseye pulleys. They worked great. The pulleys on the XT RD weren't the problem, it was just a bad design, but the Light Action's were really good and I never broke one. It was still on my MTB in 1996 when I sold it to a friend's son.

The late 80's were fun times for MTB's in the PNW, we did all kinds of experiments with components. We made our own microdrives with touring cranks before the industry did. Felt sorry for Suntour not surviving shimano.

[dddd]

I got to thinking, if the OP's pulley needs a reducing sleeve just to keep the pulley centered on the bolt, then some plastic tubing of approximate dimensions should be an easy thing to come up with. And even if the diameter is a bit too small or large, one could slit the sleeve lengthwise and spread it (or trim some from one edge) as needed.
Alternately, you could perhaps roll a sleeve with one or two wraps of the sort of thick foil used on wine bottles, or something similar(?).

[dddd]

Originally Posted by bigbill

In the late 80's, Shimano came out with a short cage XT derailleur. It shifted quickly but tended to snap. Myself and others ended up taking Shimano Light Action short cage derailleurs and installing Bullseye pulleys. They worked great. The pulleys on the XT RD weren't the problem, it was just a bad design, but the Light Action's were really good and I never broke one. It was still on my MTB in 1996 when I sold it to a friend's son.

The late 80's were fun times for MTB's in the PNW, we did all kinds of experiments with components. We made our own microdrives with touring cranks before the industry did. Felt sorry for Suntour not surviving shimano.

I sure had good luck with all of the Shimano gear from the late 1980's, as soon as the 7s chain and Hyperglide became available.
I'm still using a short-cage XT from the 7s era on my Huffy 27.5-"plus" bike, it really helped to control the chain slap I was getting with the original long-cage Shimano Altus rear derailer.

[bikinchris]

Originally Posted by simonov

This is pretty tiresome. Bike parts from all brands break or have issues at some point in their evolution.

Over time, I have had my respect for some posters drop a lot. Ignoring the multitude of design flaws from every company except SRAM is crap.

I was the warranty guy at our shop and a had a bin for each company. They were all very full. Always.

Ignoring design flaws is not uncommon. For instance:

Shimano intentionally designed their 7 and 8 speed rear derailleurs (Light Action) with a spring so light that SRAM grip shift wouldn't shift well. It was so light that it didn't shift with their own shifters either after a while. I installed hundreds of the surgical tubing helpers to keep customers happy.

Campy index springs were often broken on new bikes, leading to poor shifting. I have also changed hundreds of those on bikes still under warranty and Campy would not make them good.

Neither company would admit they had a problem.

ALL companies have had problems. None are immune.

[foo_fighter]

Yeah, that's exactly what I did as a temporary fix....but it's hard to find metric sized tubing. After slitting it, I had to add a layer of tape to get it to be snug.

Originally Posted by dddd

I got to thinking, if the OP's pulley needs a reducing sleeve just to keep the pulley centered on the bolt, then some plastic tubing of approximate dimensions should be an easy thing to come up with. And even if the diameter is a bit too small or large, one could slit the sleeve lengthwise and spread it (or trim some from one edge) as needed.
Alternately, you could perhaps roll a sleeve with one or two wraps of the sort of thick foil used on wine bottles, or something similar(?).

[dave thompson]

Originally Posted by foo_fighter

Does anyone have any 5mm to 4mm reducer bushings?
If anyone has any spares let me know!

I tried google and mcmaster carr but couldn't find anything.

I had no idea the top pulley for SRAM is 4mm and the lower one 5mm. Both replacement pulleys I bought were for 5mm only.
I noticed some kits come with reducer bushings like:

But my kit didn't.

Tacx pulleys come with a variety of bushings so they can be used with Shimano, Campy and SRAM. You might put out a request for these bushings as I’m sure that someone has what you need just laying around. I do have some but I’m 3,000 miles away for the next 6 months.

I just looked up the Tacx pulleys https://tacx.com/products/jockey-wheels/ You might contact their support folks.