jacksbike

Hi Folks,
As I have posted before, I volunteer at a non profit that repairs and gives away bikes. I have a Specialized road bike with the RSX group. I need to replace the right side 7 speed STI shift/brake lever and am looking for compatibility options. Does anyone know if a Tourney right side 7 speed STI lever would be compatabile with the 7 speed long cage RSX rear deraileur ? It appears that my options are either EBay RSX right lever or set/ Possible Tourney / or maybe some kind of microshift. Any and all help would be appreciated. Besides the RH shifter, the rest of the bike is mint !

jimc101

7 speed is 7 speed, the basics haven't changed, and are all inter-compatible.

Would look at why the RH shifter isn't working, is it gummed up, can it be flushed and fixed?

jacksbike

I used compressed air multiple times to blow out any dirt and also flooded it repeatedly with spray lube, I think that , similar to rapidfire springs and pawls, something is bad inside. I am quite sure it is not repairable.

jimc101

Being as the rest is as you say is 'mint' that a little surprising, for the analogy to Rapidfire (+) you can often get these to work again, I recently had a shifter that would miss shifts, pulled it apart (no further then the main screws) flushed and re-greased, and it works fine now!

brian3069

Compressed air and spray lube won't remove the hardened grease, it needs to be flooded with WD-40, or some type of solvent.

andrewclaus

I see a lot of these at the non-profit where I do the same sort of volunteer work. If a half hour in the ultrasonic cleaner and spraying some WD-40 doesn't work, I take them apart far enough to get a dental pick on the pawls, find the one that's stuck, then work it free with the pick. There's at least one decent on-line tutorial on disassembling these, and you don't have to get too far into it to see the pawls.

I see maybe ten percent that aren't serviceable (broken spring), then I replace them with salvaged ones in stock.

ARider2

I just rebuilt one and it works fine after taking it completely apart then cleaning and lubricating it. There are a couple of YouTube videos that are helpful but it is a bit delicate and fiddley. I suggest you first try a rebuild and if that doesn't work you can send yours out for rebuilding or buy on eBay. If rebuilding yours does not work out I have an extra one send me a PM if interested.

icemilkcoffee 

In my experience, you can use a heat gun to warm up the brifter. If it starts to shift fine after it's warmed up, then it's an issue with hardened, congealed grease. If warming it up doesn't bring it back to life then it's probably broken somewhere.

ClydeClydeson

I am also a proponent of the flush-and-lube repair for old STI levers, but I also have a pair of RSX sti levers that actually had a failure inside the mechanism that was not caused by hardened lube - I pulled the mechanism apart and found the end of a torsion spring was broken. I fixed it by partially unwinding the broken spring and bending a new hook on the new end.

ALso, OP should know that 'spray lube' is not the recommended fix for the hardened grease problem that inflicts old STI levers - you need some type of solvent or degreaser to break down the old grease that is gumming things up. I doubt any spray lube (maybe WD40 but this can also attack plastic parts) would adequately perform this function.

jacksbike

Hello everyone and thanks for all your replies. I did use compressed air and lots of degreaser. Nothing worked. I took it apart and saw that the pawl for the smaller downshift lever was not working because of a weak spring. The long upshift lever was also not working. So, I still am asking advice on which right side Shimano lever will be a replacement. I understand from asking friends that work for bike shops that the RSX STI levers were not really the best and did not last long. Should use a replacement RSX from EBay or will a Tourney A070 7 speed lever work with the RSX derailleur. They are both 7 speeds. At this point I have to replace the right side lever. Thanks.