Weird one.. Shifter slipped and not engaging.

[Trikenomad]

Hi everybody,

I had a recumbent trike equipped with a Rohloff which I sold to somebody else a month ago.  He's a good friend of mine,  so I am taking care of the machine and doing regular maintenance,  as he is quite technically challenged.

Today he came back from his usual 14 km daily route and said the shifter doesn't engage the gears anymore.
What actually happened as you can see in the pics is that the outer rubber piece(s) seems to have slipped upwards (the shifter is located vertically on the handlebars) so the 2 inner pins that actually engage the internal mechanism are pulled out of their sockets and dont push-pull the cables anymore.
I have no idea how this was possible and I notice no missing parts on the outside. He couldn't tell me either and he is usually gentle with the machine,  so i suppose that some internal piece simply unscrewed allowing the slippage.

I temporarily solved the problem by inserting 2 rubber spacers and it seems solid enough and engaging the gears correctly for the moment,  but I would like to find a permanent and proper solution which would probably imply taking apart the shifter and looking inside to see what's wrong.


So,  I would greatly appreciate if you could help me with any advice or some service manual that has diagrams of the internal mechanism, as  I wouldn't start fiddling with it without having the proper tools and manual.

Picture r1 is how I've seen it first time. (how did this space appeared?)
Picture r2 shows the space created in the upper part after I pushed it back down to engage correctly.
Picture r3 shows that there are actually 2 rubber pieces sliding on the same metal inner bar.

Thanks in advance for any advise / suggestions.

[rualexander]

You seem to be missing the circlip that holds the shifter rubber grip to the shifter body, see this video http://www.rohloff.de/en/technology/workshop/videos/twist_shifter_grip_replacement/index.html

Unless this is a modified shifter where the circlip fits at the end of the extended rubber grip section? If so, then for some reason the circlip has become detached.

[Trikenomad]

You seem to be missing the circlip that holds the shifter rubber grip to the shifter body, see this video http://www.rohloff.de/en/technology/workshop/videos/twist_shifter_grip_replacement/index.html

Unless this is a modified shifter where the circlip fits at the end of the extended rubber grip section? If so, then for some reason the circlip has become detached.

Thanks  for the idea and for the link.  I would say it is impossible for some internal part to be missing,  maybe just snapped off but remained on the inside floating inbetween the other pieces. Nobody unmounted the shifter to take something out of there and if that circlip broke for some reason (improbable for a 1year/ 2000 km old system) it must be still inside. Anyway I cannot be sure until I take it apart which will happen the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile I continue searching.

Thanks,

[JimK]

I am pretty sure that the internals of the shifters do vary a bit. When I replaced my shifter cables, things didn't quite match the video I watched. There certainly was a spring clip holding it all together, though.