# Sram Red rear der. Noise



## JSWhaler (Nov 25, 2009)

This is my second season running Sram red and recently the rear der. has been making a lot of noise. While riding it seems fine, maybe a tad louder than usual, but as soon as I apply more pressure to the pedals i.e. standing or pushing a hard pace the rear der. starts making a ton of noise. I feel like it might explode or something. It doesn't seem to be out of alignment and shifts fine. I believe the sound might be coming from the pulleys. Anyone else experience this issue?


----------



## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

derailleurs and pulleys rarely make noise. chains and cassettes make noise. if you think it's the pulleys, take the rear wheel out and pull the chain away from them and give them a spin. i'm betting they're pretty damn silent. if your derailleur is not adjusted properly, or your hanger is not aligned, you'll get noise. you say it's 2 seasons old...have you installed a new chain? new or different cassette? bike fall over? crash? are the cables/housing also 2 years old (i hope not...) ? if they are, there's probably no way your shifting is accurate.


----------



## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

Check the derailleur alignment too.

Also if the sram chain is worn even a little it will cause noise, try using a KMC chain instead, they seem to work better with sram derailleurs then the sram chain does!


----------



## JSWhaler (Nov 25, 2009)

I'm currently running a DA chain. It seems to be the pulley's making the noise. Reading up on them, Sram says to use grease on them. I'll have to give it a try. I tried some tri-flow and it helped for about 20 or so miles, then the noise came back.


----------



## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

JSWhaler said:


> I'm currently running a DA chain. It seems to be the pulley's making the noise. Reading up on them, Sram says to use grease on them. I'll have to give it a try. I tried some tri-flow and it helped for about 20 or so miles, then the noise came back.


For kicks try some skate board lube like Bones Speed Cream. There just bearings or bushings inside those pulleys, and skate board lube is for bearings and it works quite well, so maybe?


----------



## cxwrench (Nov 9, 2004)

froze said:


> For kicks try some skate board lube like Bones Speed Cream. There just bearings or bushings inside those pulleys, and skate board lube is for bearings and it works quite well, so maybe?


looks like that Bones stuff is a liquid. probably not the best thing to lubricate bearings with. sram provides blue grease w/ the black box ceramic bb's...it's pretty good stuff if you can get some of that. but really, any light to medium weight grease will work great. you need to remove the pulleys from the derailleur, and then pop the shields off the bearings w/ a razor blade or sharp pick. if they're dirty, clean them out and let them dry. then stuff them full of grease and pop the shields back on. wipe them off thoroughly after the excess grease gets squeezed out and put them back in the derailleur. 
that said, i still really doubt that your pulleys are making a bunch of noise. i've worked on bikes where the pulleys have been pretty much destroyed and they don't make noise.


----------



## froze (Sep 15, 2002)

cxwrench said:


> looks like that Bones stuff is a liquid. probably not the best thing to lubricate bearings with. sram provides blue grease w/ the black box ceramic bb's...it's pretty good stuff if you can get some of that. but really, any light to medium weight grease will work great. you need to remove the pulleys from the derailleur, and then pop the shields off the bearings w/ a razor blade or sharp pick. if they're dirty, clean them out and let them dry. then stuff them full of grease and pop the shields back on. wipe them off thoroughly after the excess grease gets squeezed out and put them back in the derailleur.
> that said, i still really doubt that your pulleys are making a bunch of noise. i've worked on bikes where the pulleys have been pretty much destroyed and they don't make noise.


Yeah, and sram says to use grease so I would use grease, but I've been using it on my pulleys and freewheels for quite a few years and they run silky smooth and quieted down my freewheels to where they don't make any noise or very little. I do apply it about once a year but otherwise no issues. I use it on Suntour, Shimano, and Campy stuff, but I don't own any sram stuff.

Anyway I have a friend who's big into skateboarding and roller blading and used first Speed Skate Libe then switched to Bones on those bearings, then he got to thinking about his bike stuff and started using it on his pulleys with the thought that the bearings on the pulleys and freewheels take far less of a load then skateboard or roller blades. He's never had any problems either.

And for quite a while I used Speed Skate Lube on my chains, haven't tried the Bones on my chains, I'm waiting to see what the long term effect is with Chain L

But we may be sitting on a time bomb?? I don't know, at least for now it's been working, and it's been working for about 15 years. I used Speed Skate lube on the same stuff for years before I started using Bones, only switched to Bones because I can no longer find Speed Skate Lube.


----------

