Mech Pimping For Cheapskates

[torqueless]

I have a soft spot for Suntour derailleurs- in spite of never having actually bought one, owned one, or used one. Since their slanted parallelogram patent ran out, just about every manufacturer has jumped on their innovation, but back in the '70s, when you saw a Suntour, it was just so obvious that a parallelogram should be slanted that you just wondered what all the other manufacturers thought they were playing at?

The last time I was in the market for derailleurs was about 1983. At that time I was choosing between the soon to be discontinued (you could see it coming) Campag. Nuovo Record, and Suntour Cyclone. Joe Whisker was waiting for me to make my mind up. I asked him what he thought, and he said; "not much in it, really", which in itself was a sort of endorsement for the Suntour, up against the gold-standard derailleur of the last fifteen years.... In the end I chose the Campag.

Anyway.... about 25 years later I pick up this bike, which looks to have been ridden through about three nasty winters without cleaning or maintenance, and strip it down. Amongst the components, a Suntour derailleur. It was so dirty that I just couldn't face cleaning it at the time. A while later, I gave it a superficial 'surface clean' and chucked it in the parts box. A lot of the dirt was congealed grease, which I guess was a good sign.

Another five years passes, and I reckon it's about time I faced up to stripping the thing down and cleaning it properly- here's what I got: http://velobase.com/ViewComponent.aspx? ... AbsPos=400
Here's most of the bits of mine:

The parallelogram and pivots were in great shape. The top pulley especially had a lot of play, and the bushes of both pulleys need replacing.

Although sturdy, this is one plug-ugly derailleur, nowhere near as pretty as a Cyclone or Campag. Nuovo Record. It also has a GT cage, and I haven't got any Grand Tours planned, or sprockets bigger than 24 teeth. With that in mind, and because I have some time on my hands, I am going to pare away a bit of excess baggage from this derailleur, love it to death, and make it FUNKY! ....(or probably just funny)...

Next exciting instalment coming soon- Making a start on pimping your mech! Absolutely missable......

 

[Blacktopdisciple]

Looking forward to this thread developing. Suntour are one of my fav deraileur company's

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Part Two- Filium Therapy



Did I say 'plug-ugly'? Check out the housing for the stop-screws at the back- It actually looks like a plug-socket! And somewhere in there it says; 'H' and 'L' or something, like an idiot-guide so you don't get confused which screw does what... WTF? That's all got to go....

The front view is no better- It looks like a pile of boxes about to fall over... Imagine looking back between your legs to see what gear you're in and seeing that? That's all got to go too...

This is Filium Therapy. Drillium, if it's for anything, is for already pretty (and expensive)derailleurs. Let's face it, Suntour would have done what I'm going to do themselves if this wasn't a price-point derailleur... look at a Cyclone.

So... No mystery, we got some filing to do. We got to knock the corners off the squares and get them to flow and forget they were ever square. We got to get in every little corner and obliterate it, but maintain structural integrity. This is a lesson, and a discipline, and a meditation, which has applications beyond bicycle parts.

You could throw the thing in the ocean and pick it up ten years later...trouble is the ocean is indiscriminate, and will **** with the bits you wouldn't go anywhere near with a file... pivots and pins and such.

Filium therapy...Who wants a blow-by-blow account of how one goes about this? You either dig it and do it or don't. Horace calls it 'limae labor'... The labour of the file...grinding and polishing...snail paced, and by implication, close to futility.

Well... you get the picture, so I'll just show you an 'after' picture, or, more accurately, a 'work in progress' picture, and in the next exhilerating instalment, I will get to sound (sand?) off some more...

 

[Nob]

Let the Polish Butcher loose on it

 

[Spokesmann]

Lets see the rest!

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Yeah let's have a gander, warts and all..

Before- The arse-end of an '80s CRT monitor, with limit-screw idiot-guide:

In progress- "We trust you to work it out for yourself which limit-screw goes where... if you are confused, just have a look 'round the other side":

(nail in use as temporary parallelogram-pin, the one pin on this mech which can be punched out)

As close as we can get to a flattering picture ATM:

Those parallelogram arms are steel, BTW- no way would I drill that much out of 'em if they were aluminium alloy.

 

[Nob]

over to the butcher then

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Nob, you are obsessed with the fellow.. He, in common with the other panto-merchants whose machine-perfection some believe he should emulate, writes names on things, and in the process introduces unnecessary corners, IMO. What I am doing is diametrically opposed to that..

 

[Hillwalker]

Excellent! I too have a soft spot for Suntours, but have always stayed away from these mechs precisely because of their ugliness!! Later on, Suntour sort of got their act together cosmetically as well as functionally. Please keep going!

HW

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Well, in the '70s, the flagship Suntour Cyclone was (almost) as pretty in it's way as a Nuovo Record, IMO. Further down the hierarchy of models you got stuff like this- the 'underlying form' and mechanical soundness is there- you just have to try to excavate the former without sacrificing the latter, or I do, apparently. Anyway...
I'm just sort of feeling my way into this, with no concrete plans. Improvising. It could all go horribly wrong... some readers are muttering to themselves: "It already did"..

Like I said, I have this long 'GT' pulley-cage which is going to look a bit silly on this mech now- a drillium touring bike? No way I can shorten the cage.

The only other cage I've got is a Campag. one, which should probably stay attached to it's other associated bits.

So now I've got to build a pulley-cage from scratch. Also, the top pulley-axle is integrated with the pivot-bolt on this mech, and I'm hoping to do away with that configuration. So that complicates things further.

Being more or less a two-wheeled womble, my eyes are often trained on the 'roadkill zone', the edge of the highway, where I should stay if I know what's good for me, according to most of the metal-box pilots zooming past. I'm always finding weird bits of metal there. I have no idea whether they were functioning as vehicle parts just before they fell there, or whether they are random escapees from truckloads of scrap metal. Maybe they fall off aeroplanes? Anyway, a while ago I found a plate of aluminium alloy three feet long, four inches wide, and one eighth of an inch thick. A couple of pieces cut off the end will give me the raw material for my pulley-cage. Yes, I know, it hasn't been drop-forged into pulley-cage plates or whatever- The metallurgical dept. are otherwise engaged, the forgers are nowhere to be seen, leaving just Torqueless, with his vice, files, drills, and hacksaws.. better get started...