AdventureManCO 

Happy Memorial Day all.

In the spirit of appreciating and enjoying this day with gratitude, I started perusing through my bike parts, which I'm sure is its own odd kind of therapy. So, I had an old Suntour Cyclone II rear derailleur sitting in my junk bin (I know, far from junk) that had it's cage leaf spring break, then had it modified with a v-brake return spring. I didn't do anything with it after that so it just sat around. We'll, I've been looking to lighten up my project mixmaster and started thinking about that derailleur again. It's just too nice to bin it, so I want to try to use it. I'm going with a friction shifter anyway, so no worries about any indexing mumbo jumbo.

Well, I started looking at it more closely, and started to really appreciate its well-though-out design, it's robustness (well, apart from the spring), and its wonderful simplicity.

Being one not to leave well enough alone, I'm going to give 'tuning' a shot. In this case, tuning can refer to either 'lightening' a part while keeping the same level of function, or 'improving' upon the function. In this case I'm going for both. I think this derailleur is worth it. When looking at some of the lightest derailleurs ever made, we've got the Huret Jubilee (145-ish grams), the SRAM Red (in the same ballpark), The Shimano Dura Ace RD-7900 (165-ish grams), and the the Cyclone II at around 170 grams. That's only 25 grams away from the Jubilee. I want to get it under the Jubilee. I'm going for it.

I got on here looking for some modification inspiration, but came up a bit empty. So, I'm starting the thread.

So, in the paradoxical attempt to shave off and drill out the grams so that we can stick these amazing parts on our overweight steel frames, show your tuned and improved parts. Ho-made counts. Weight counts before/after also encouraged.

thumpism 

This is my go-to submission for such discussions. Need a triple? Make one.

Heavier, it goes without saying. Lower geared, definitely. Mission accomplished.

droppedandlost 

I converted an 80s road bike for gravel usage but the stock Shimano friction levers couldn't hold the gears with all the vibrations. I got some Sunrace 7sp indexed clamp ons but they didn't quite fit the boss washers. Dremel to the rescue. I had to widen the notch for the washer key, sand down the face of the ring, and the fun part was shaving down the outer circumference to fit inside the washer. I dinged up the inside of the lever but it isn't visible when mounted.

The Golden Boy 

I don't know if this belongs here- but replacing the index ring in Suntour Accushift shifters to make them compatible with 10 speed Shimano indexing...

IMG_0063 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

oneclick 

When I first saw the title I mis-read it and thought it said "turned" parts.

But that's ok, this bit fits either way:




I had a good-sized sprocket that was supposed to go on a crank with a different BCD, so I got a bit of 6061 aluminum sheet and turned an adaptor on my dad's (now mine) lathe. Was a good project, a bit tricky as the necessary offsets to make it flush left little margin for error. Spot the one I did make....

And if anyone is tempted to do the same, remember to take the skin off *both* sides of the sheet, otherwise you'll have unbalanced residual stress, and it'll bow.

(I just posted a photo of the complete bike in the show-us-your-bike-that-no-one-else-has thread.)

SuperLJ

I’m not sure if this counts and it ain’t all that ingenious.

Modern front cable hangers are really fugly and sit too far out and too high, so for my Nobilette I tapped out a chromed steel MAFAC cable hanger to accept an adjuster:

Feldman

Making a 6/7 speed Suntour lever work with Shimano 10? That's not tuning, that's alchemy--well done!

mechanicmatt

More details needed! where did you get the part?

JohnDThompson 

When the long-cage Simplex SX-410 derailleur died on my tandem, I didn't have another long-cage Simplex to replace it. So I took the long cage off the SX-410 and put it on an SX-660 instead. The dropped parallelogram on the SX-660 shifts better than the SX-410 ever did, anyway.

stykthyn

indeed. That seems ingenious.

The Golden Boy 

There's a nice young man who makes these- His name is Naoki Takayama- I've ordered a few from him, and have one in use- I think there are a few other people that have these in use here.

Anyway- it works great, you're just replacing the Accushift indexing ring with the detents in the right spots for 10 speed SIS.

His email is in the websites- he's been out of Command Shifters for years, but he still (as of 2 years ago) had rings for sale.

https://suntourcommand.blogspot.com/...himano-10.html

Command Shifter blog: Suntour Command SIS10s **********????

Nifty pix in those- kinda half in Japanse, half English, but you can figure out what's going on and what he's done and how he's used them.

Every time I post stuff about them, he's said he gets a rush of orders. I'm like his best advertising!


Rough Fit 720 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

Rough Fit 720 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

IMG_2402 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

IMG_1715 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr

stykthyn

could you use these to convert older shimano 6/7 speed shifters to 10 speed?

The Golden Boy 

I don't think so- These are rings that fit into the body of Accushift shifters.

Running into this thread has made me realize I never got the thumb shifters I'd planned on getting... but now I'm thinking Paul thumbies and the Superbe Pro shifters I've got sitting in a box... (opened)

ThermionicScott 

I caught the weight-weenie bug after PBP 2015 and did a bunch of component swapping and parts lightening on my randonneuring/day-touring bike.

On the left is a stem which I shortened (including the bolt) and swapped to an aluminum wedge from the cast iron (?) one it came with. On the right is a seat post after cutting off a bunch of excess length and drilling a few holes in a pretty low-risk area. I eventually replaced it with an even lighter aluminum seatpost:


I made this light mount out of a small piece of aluminum sheet, bent, drilled, and filed:


I used my Dremel to open up the cutouts in the cassette cogs for lightening. (The 23T cog second from left on the top row is from another cassette, to show how they started.) You'll note a couple teeth that I removed entirely on a couple cogs, it was a fun experiment but it made the drivetrain run a bit rougher for some reason:


There was some other tuning, like trimming 1/4" from the ends of the handlebars, but that's all I have for good pictures. All in all, I took about 4 lbs out of the bike.

SJX426 

I had an issue with mounting fenders (mud guards for you Brits) on my RockHopper. There wasn't a hole in the brake bridge to mount anything. So I had to improvise. I used tie straps or zip ties.
P1000033, on Flickr

Then there was the issue of the front wheel and the distance from the crown, which had a brake mounting hole, and where the fender needed to be. Grabbed one of the those card cage pieces from the computer parts box and modified it.
P1000035, on Flickr

There was a little rubbing on the front fender by the brake when actuated.
P1000034, on Flickr

You will notice that the 2 inch tires are a bit wide for the fenders but I was able to get everything adjusted such that the only time there was rubbing was when I stood up to climb a hill. All in all, it was a tight fit. Nice fender line, no? I can hear the little pebbles role through the arc of the fenders!
P1000030 , on Flickr

This was my commuter for a couple of thousand miles.
Truck with packw, on Flickr

I didn't try a solution for the optional suspension fork but I did test to see if there was any difference in average MPH, suspension or not. With a lb. difference there was none.
P1020529, on Flickr

Air ride so it settled down to original height. I adjusted all the parameters to get the right ride height and have suspension that minimized the impact to steering geometry. So, don't bring it up!

due ruote 

Another fender mod. I made a stainless bracket for the rear, slit the fender with a Dremel, and riveted it to the underside.
I carry a frame pump along the seat stay and had to make a little cutout for it.
oops - sideways pics.

thumpism 

A twofer also from my Cimarron (source of the triple crank above) is the Pletscher seat stay mount made from a cracked rack, and the Soubitez BB mount generator modded to fit on the brake bridge by using a rear reflector bracket.

gesta

From this...

...through this...

...to this.