Shifting

You will probably get a better response if you can define 'playing'.
1. Did it all happen at the shifter, or at the deraileur?
2. Did you change the effective length of the cable by turning the adjusting barrel or by shifting the cable end at the deraileur?
3. Did you take apart the shifter or deraileur?

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ninerfan
hi, im new here (here and in the bike community)
i recently bought a 1990 road bike with suntour accushift 3040 shifters. Is anyone familiar on how to adjust it ?
I was 'playing' around with it and now i cant get it to shift anymore. It suppose to click when engaging a gear. It no longer clicks nor can i select a gear.

thanks for the response.
Im a complete newbie. I know very little about bikes so please bear with me if i dont know the biking terminology.
I think its at the shifter. When i change gears i notice that the derailer doesnt move on some of the inbetween gears. Also looks like there is too much slack on the shifting cable which leads to question 2 (i may have change the effective length of the cable by turning the adjusting barrel)
Not sure how i did that. Shift too hard?
I did not take apart the shifter or derailer but i probably worsen the problem by trying to adjust it without knowing what im doing.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by ninerfan
hi, im new here (here and in the bike community)
i recently bought a 1990 road bike with suntour accushift 3040 shifters. Is anyone familiar on how to adjust it ?
I was 'playing' around with it and now i cant get it to shift anymore. It suppose to click when engaging a gear. It no longer clicks nor can i select a gear.

on the older shimano shifters, turning the d-ring on the shift lever changed it from index shifting (clicking) to friction shifting. there was a separate bolt to tighten the shifter to the braze-on boss.

the friction shifting may not be tight enough to hold the lever in place so could be why you can't select gears right now.

take a look and play some more. could be simple to get back the indexing/clicking.

Drewski thanks you were right. The lever d-ring toggled betwn clicking and friction and my fiddling around screwed things up.
The fix was simple and do i feel stupid haha. It was just a matter of loosening the bolt on the derailer and pulling on the cable to tighten it.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Real LITE guy
2. Did you change the effective length of the cable by turning the adjusting barrel or by shifting the cable end at the deraileur?

I did that to my mtn bike... I ended up making my shifter go to second gear when it pointed to first, third gear when it pointed to second, etc... Had a hell of a time getting it back to its previous tightness... At least it was only a Huffy : )