Follow these instructions at your own risk – It is preferable to discuss your rattling levers with your retailer!
Do your Dura-Ace levers rattle on rough road surfaces? According to Madison Sales who look after the Shimano Service Centre Web Enquiry service, it’s “not a known fault”, yet I’ve met lots of people with the same problem and a quick search on the Internet reveals we’re not alone. I was quite annoyed with their brush off, after all, these are levers with a RRP of £429.99! So rather than get into a protracted debate with my retailer (Planet X) and Shimano and then ultimately lose the use of the bike for a few weeks (longer? Who knows!) I decided to see what I could do on my own.
If you inspect your levers carefully and in good light (not a job for the dimly lit garage), you’ll notice after a little trial and error that there are two main surfaces inside the lever that have the potential to rattle against other components inside the lever. I thought that some super glue, off cuts from an old inner tube and some string might bring me a solution.
So, you’ll need some string, super glue and some off cuts of old inner tube, I find MTB tubes are best as they’re thicker. Make sure you put the glue on the outside of the old tube, not the inside as it will be full of talc and won’t glue well. In any case, clean the tube thoroughly to guarantee good adhesion!
Where to place rubber insulation material
This picture hopefully explains more or less everything, you need to use the string to pull the lever all the way to the inside of the bars to reveal as much of the plastic protrusion (arrowed) as possible. This plastic protrusion rattles against other components in the lever and needs some rubber insulation. Do this for both levers, be sparing with the super glue, do not undo the string for at least 15 minutes to allow the glue to properly dry.
There is another common rattle point, again using the string technique, apply a small rubber patch to the area arrowed below (rubber patch is in place in this photo but it’s no the greatest of pictures I’m afraid!). If the patch wasn’t in place in this picture, you would see a small circular piece of metal that resembles a rivet. Place a tiny piece of inner tube on top of it.
Side view of lever for placement of 2nd rubber patch
That’s just about it really, not the most elegant of solutions. Hopefully the pictures tell the main part of the story without me rattling (did you see what I did there?) on, I’ve had the patches in place for about 700 miles now and they haven’t need re-fixing.
Good luck!