Klein Attitude Front Mech Fitting Problems

The FD-M970 is supplied with two reducer shims, is one of them (probably the 31.8mm shim) still attached in place?

Hi, thanks for the reply.

No, there are no shims in place. In fact both shims are still in the packet.

In that case, put the band around the seat tube roughly where it will be mounted.

Press the band together with one hand making sure that it sits flush on the surface of the seat tube as much as possible.

Thread on the bolt and gently tighten down. The fit will be tight, but you will see the band seat itself around the tube.

Very strange, can you measure the seat tube diameter and make sure the sizing is correct? How much are you missing by? Sometimes you'll have to mar the paint a bit in order to get it to fit properly. It will press on if you're just a bit off. Pictures may be helpful at that point, I'd like to say "hold your bike up to the internet so I can talk to it" but I don't think it will work.

That's the thing, it doesn't fit flush on the surface at all. Also, even if I wanted to tighten the bolt because the gap is to wide!! The clamp is definitely a 34.9 as it says so on the inside. I also experimented with it by clamping it around the seat tube on my Orange Five which is a 31.8 (in case it was a Shimano production error) and the clamp would have needed one of the shims to fit on.

I've seen pictures of later Klein Attitudes with clamped on front mechs so the answer's got to be out there somewhere.

Thanks again.

zebrahum said:

Very strange, can you measure the seat tube diameter and make sure the sizing is correct? How much are you missing by? Sometimes you'll have to mar the paint a bit in order to get it to fit properly. It will press on if you're just a bit off. Pictures may be helpful at that point, I'd like to say "hold your bike up to the internet so I can talk to it" but I don't think it will work.

Click to expand...

I don't really want to damage the paint on this frame as it's got one of the custom paint jobs on it. I'll try and take a picture.

I've just tried it again. I think it will go with a bit of persuasion.

Thanks a lot for this. Embarrassingly, it appears that I've been a bit of a ***** in not wanting to scratch the paint, but it seems that the paint is a fair amount tougher than I'd originally thought and the mech will actually go on....

Yeah, don't worry about the paintjob - it's pretty tough and won't scratch easily just from derailleur clamping.

And yes, you're going to need to persuade it here. Looks like the custom paint may be a touch out of tolerance so you're going to have to squeeze it on.

I'd install the bottom bracket and crankset first, so you'll know where to locate the derailleur.

The crankset is on now. I wasn't trying to fit the mech without it on, I was just trying everything out before I installed it all in one big bike building session.

Still can't get the mech to fit though. The paint is starting to mark where I've been squeezing the clamp around it and I still can't get the first thread to engage. It will go eventually (I hope), but unfortunately, I think it will be at the cost of some paint

Like Salt-n-Pepa said, push it real good.

You're going to loose some paint, so either run it singlspeed or you're going to have to get over it. Make sure that thing is the right height the first time and push it on.