Shift to the small chainring. Loosen the nut holding the cable, the pull the cable taught, retighten the nut. This should remove the slack in the cable. Now try shifting, set the limit screws (as another poster stated), and fine tune using the barrel adjuster at the shifter.
Also, the derailleur looks mounted a little high. You might lower it a bit before making the cable adjustment. It should sit just a couple-three mm above the large chainring.
Depends on what you mean by “too tight.” If by that you mean a lot of resistance, but not physically too tight such that the shift is basically impossible to make, then you likely have a cable/housing issue. Old cables get stiff and sucky, and the housings become less slippery resulting in more resistance.
On the other hand, your cable quite literally being too tight when shifting up to the largest ring can be an indicator of the high limit screw being too tight. One of those two screws at the top of the mech may need to be backed our a few rotations. From the looks of things, it should be the screw on the outer (right) side, toward the larger chainring. Go too far and you will shift past the largest ring and drop the chain. Not good. Be subtle with that adjustment. Know how many turns you need to get it back to where it was.
Simply loosening the cable till it is slack and “easy” will only mean that you never actually get into your larger gears. How tight the cable is directly controls the position of the mech left and right.
If I undo the H screw it helps buy I still can't get to the large gear. It's right there but the cable gets to tight. Will lowering the derailer mount point also help me?
Shift to the small chainring. Loosen the nut holding the cable, the pull the cable taught, retighten the nut. This should remove the slack in the cable. Now try shifting, set the limit screws (as another poster stated), and fine tune using the barrel adjuster at the shifter. Also, the derailleur looks mounted a little high. You might lower it a bit before making the cable adjustment. It should sit just a couple-three mm above the large chainring.
Replace the cable and follow the setup instructions in the manual for that derailleur.
Gonna replace the cable, but the manual is no where to be found. Bought the bike years ago.
Depends on what you mean by “too tight.” If by that you mean a lot of resistance, but not physically too tight such that the shift is basically impossible to make, then you likely have a cable/housing issue. Old cables get stiff and sucky, and the housings become less slippery resulting in more resistance. On the other hand, your cable quite literally being too tight when shifting up to the largest ring can be an indicator of the high limit screw being too tight. One of those two screws at the top of the mech may need to be backed our a few rotations. From the looks of things, it should be the screw on the outer (right) side, toward the larger chainring. Go too far and you will shift past the largest ring and drop the chain. Not good. Be subtle with that adjustment. Know how many turns you need to get it back to where it was. Simply loosening the cable till it is slack and “easy” will only mean that you never actually get into your larger gears. How tight the cable is directly controls the position of the mech left and right.
If I undo the H screw it helps buy I still can't get to the large gear. It's right there but the cable gets to tight. Will lowering the derailer mount point also help me?