Originally Posted by Andy_K

This was a new one to me. I went to bolt the Cyclone rear derailleur on last night, and I found that it didn't want to pivot on the mounting bolt. The bolt would turn but with a lot of resistance. So, I figured out how to remove the mounting bolt so I could check it out. I thought maybe it was missing the washer that lets it pivot smoothly (part 3 in the diagram below) or maybe it was just gunked up and needed cleaning.



When I opened it, I found that the washer was there, so I pulled it off to wipe it clean and I found another one below it. So I pulled that one off to clean it and I found another one below it. And so on. There were five of these washers in there. I don't know what the history of this was. Maybe somebody needed to replace the washer and the replacements they had were a different thickness so they used extra? The bolt did have a bit of gunk on it, but when I cleaned everything and put all the washers back it was still just as stiff as when I started. With just one washer, it pivoted easily but it felt like there was a bit of play (though maybe I just didn't get the mounting bushing -- part 4 -- tight enough). With two washers it moves freely without play.

My question is, why didn't the person who put the extra washers in there notice that it wasn't working?