SpedFast

My fave bike with 11spd 105 drive train has been shifting sloppily lately. (Rear Derail) I assumed at first it might be grit in the cables (internal routing). I also thought it might have something to do with cable tension. Since it was really busy out there today (Sunday tourists and a car show) I decided to give the old gal a thorough cleaning, lube, and adjust everything. Discovered the upper jockey wheel was sloppy as all get out. Bottom one in good shape. Dug into my parts bins and came up with a likely candidate from an old 8spd derailleur. Shimano in relatively good condition. Discovered real quick that it's 1 mm wider made a huge difference when I shifted down to granny gear and the spokes scraped the DR. Luckily it was on the stand. So I swapped the bottom jockey with the wider one because there is more clearance for the bottom one and tried again. After some slight adjustments, it shifts smooth and crisp. Now, with all that background info, I am coming to my question. I noticed that there are slight differences between the 2 wheels with the top one having deeper teeth (11) which is now in the lower position. Since it works, do I still need to get a set that also has the differences and put them in the right positions, or can I just buy a pair of wheels (identical) and throw them on there. I plan to upgrade to sealed bearings on them, but not sure what else is important or relevant. All comments or bits of wisdom (regarding jockey wheels, not life) are appreciated. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long speech. Smokey.

CliffordK

Shimano jockey wheels are made with bushings with a slight amount of side to side motion, with the thought that it helps with the shifting to find the gears better.

Ultegra and Dura Ace jockey wheels should have ceramic bushings, but 105 should have steel bushings. They should still be rather long wearing.

I have chosen aluminum ball bearing jockey wheels on one bike because I thought the older derailleur had too much flex throughout to shift well.

If you like how you're configured your bike, then go ahead and ride as is. Then you could try upgrading to some Ultegra wheels, or try the ball bearing wheels, whichever you think is best.

Andrew R Stewart 

Many of the DA guide pulleys I have serviced (during what we call a deluxe tune up, a drivetrain cleaning on top of the usual tune) have a unique dual ball bearing with float. The Ultegra and below groups use a bushing. Ceramic for the better groups (below DA) and steel bushings for the lower grade ones. The steel wears fastest, ceramic less so and the DA ball bearinged version lasts a lot longer. (classic getting what you pay for). All this is independent on riding conditions and maintenance manors. Andy

SpedFast

Yeah, I understand a little side to side play, but I think someone forgot to grease this one at the factory and the sea air here mixed with sand has started rusting and my bad for never pulling them apart and servicing them, but it is way beyond a little play. I don't feel any hurry to fix it now that it's working, but I still plan to upgrade to sealed bearings and just want to be sure I fully understand all I need to know to get it right the first time. Thanks for the reply.

SpedFast

Andy, I guess what I am asking is, does the small amount of side to side play and longer teeth on the guide wheel really enhance shifting? The 2 originals were marked 'G' (guide) and 'T' (tension) with the G having slightly deeper teeth and probably a little side play before it wore out. I put much stock in your opinion, Smokey

Andrew R Stewart 

When Shimano first introduced the current base design for indexed shifting (and I'm not including Positron or IGHs in this) back in about 1986 (aprox) they listed about 17 factors that were important to a clean chain run and reliable shifting (read as consumer acceptable). Among them was the guide pulley having sone side to side float to absorb the various tolerances of the parts that make up the system. The float had nothing to do with actual shifting, in fact the float ******* (slows down, in case that auto censor strikes "******") the shifting a little bit but the after shifting quiet chain run was more important to the market place (IMO). Remember that Shimano spent a lot of effort prior to Indexed shifting to quicken the chain's derailing from cog to cog, WRT lever travel. So a small bit of slower derailing wasn't a big deal.

Over the years Shimano has further refined the bits and increased shifting response, all the time with that guide pulley float still an aspect.

We see a lot of guide pulley bushings that are well worn out. Indicated by the pulley being able to rock or tilt off vertical. A good pulley will have some end play with nearly zero rocking. A worn pulley will rock and tilt. Andy

CliffordK

For years I've greased my jockey wheels whenever I service the chain. But I've now moved to using a viscous oil due to increased drag causing increased wear on the pulley teeth.

I have seen 105 pulleys that appeared 100% dry, and wondered if that was by design.

Of course, down at the bottom one gets plastic on steel...

smd4

I use Omni Racer alloy pulley wheels on my DA 7700 RD. No "float" in the jockey wheel. Everything shifts fine and is quiet after each shift.

SpedFast

Thanks Andy, you answered my question. I actually thought it was shifting better with the no side to side play wheel in the guide position, but wasn't sure if I was just experiencing improvement over the worn out wheel.

Andrew R Stewart 

And I'm not saying that aftermarket pulleys won't work well. But I have dealt with some drivetrains that just wouldn't have that nice smooth and quiet chain run, on all combos, with a non float pulley. When a repair is cost "challenging" and the guide pulley is worn out I will swap the two pulleys around. With the tension pulley nearly always being worn, but not anywhere near so floppy as the guide one, there is some sort of float but less lever over movement needed to attain the shift. While I do have some issues with the once 500 lb gorilla that is Shimano I have to respect their designs and goal of user acceptance. Andy

Tusk

I had a squeek recently in my 11 spd 105. Tracked it to the jockeys and there was a little more play than I liked. Ordered a replacement set of Ultegra. They had sealed bearings in there. I like sealed bearings.

zandoval 

WOW... A few of my derailleurs are as Frankenized as my bikes. I don't really know what make of jockeys I'm running on them. Just 1 mm and ya nearly slammed your spokes. I have got to remember this!

CliffordK

You might look at your derailleur hanger adjustment.

When I upgraded to 9s on my old Colnago (126mm dropouts), I was pinging away on the spokes, and noticed a bent derailleur hanger. Fixed that, and I was able to shift into all my gears.

SpedFast

Yeah, in my research for new jockeys I discovered that lots of people ordering from ebay and amazon ran into the problem with the cheap jockeys being wider at the bearing and hitting spokes when in the large cog. I also had to use a different screw because the original was too short to properly lock into the threads. Lots of room in the tensioner position, just the guide (upper) that doesn't have much clearance.