ricohman

How hard are these to come by?
These seem near impossible to find where I live without buying an entire bike.
I used to own one of these derailleurs in about 1985, but I foolishly gave it to a young female friend long ago.
And a long cage Cyclone M-II? They seem to be very scarce as well.
Am I better off using some kind of mountain bike RD for an old touring bike resto?

Antipodes

PM sent.

McDave

I've only seen this one (Suntour LePree) and it was on a Nishiki Belair I bought recently...

balindamood

What was the point of three pullys?

ricohman

Thats it!
The Loch Ness Monster of derailleurs.
I am going to have to keep an eye out for old Nishiki's. The project bike is a Nishiki so I guess its fitting.
Thanks for the pic. It brings back a lot of memories.

ricohman

On touring bikes it took up a great deal of chain.
These bikes would run a 32 or 34 rear with a 26 to 28 front.

cuda2k

SunTour put out a couple of different derailleurs with the 3-pully configuration. There are photos of a few of them over on Velobase.com. LePree was certainly one, I think there was a Cyclone as well? I'll leave it up to the curious to go look.

LWaB

AFAIR Nishiki came up with the design and licenced Suntour to build it. Virtually every one I've ever seen was on a Nishiki-built bike.

cuda2k

That's an interesting tid-bit of information.

Very cool to see one of these 3 pully setups in use in the photo above. From just the photos on velobase it was hard to get an idea of how it was supposed to work.

McDave

Here's an old post from T-Mar on the LePrees...

https://www.bikeforums.net/showpost.p...78&postcount=5

cyclotoine

Man I bet if I went to the used bike shops in the city today and spend 30 minutes rummaging at each I could come up with at least one, but maybe as many as 5 of those. Not necessarily LePree but definitely the arx version.

ricohman

Well, I actually need two of these, LePree prefered if possible and a 32 tooth speed suntour freewheel.
So if you can pick them up, I would be interested.

top506

I think I have a 14-32 Sun Tour 5 speed freewheel. PM me.
Top

coelcanth

those derailleurs are hi-larios

a picture of one is always good for a laff,
the real thing might be even better !

peripatetic

I have a LePreee 3-wheel RD, as well. PM me if you're interested.

balindamood

Perpetuating the sickness:

https://cgi.ebay.com/NOS-Suntour-XC-S...QQcmdZViewItem

ricohman

Wow.
These awesome derailleurs are worth as much as a Chorus!
I wonder why this guy has three but all are missing the large attachment bolt and clip?
And who would scavenge such a beauty for the pulleys as he suggested!

cyclotoine

BTW ricoh, I checked one shop and came up with nothing, They periodically toss stuff so they don't get huge build-up of old parts, I know I saw one there some time ago and the staff confirmed they remember one kicking around, but alas it was gone. I didn't get a chance to get to any of the other shops but it looks like you already have 2 offers, so I guess you're good.

ricohman

I have one for sure but I need two. God knows why..........
I checked my local LBS and they have long thrown out stuff like this.
And McDave also pointed out this auction.
I would never pay this much for this curiousity but someone is.

https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWA:IT&ih=006

cyclotoine

What about the one offered by peripatetic?

ricohman

No reply as of yet.

stronglight

Okay, I'll be the stupid kid of the group and ask...

What the heck was that supposed to do which a standard long cage derailleur could not?

A simple Shimano long cage Deore from the era could already efficiently wrap plenty of chain. So was this intended just to keep the lower pulley higher off the ground? ... or, was it to work around the lack of a spring loaded upper pivit bolt which most any other manufacturer was using by this time? It seems the triple pulley models were only used for a few years during the mid 1980s. Was it a bad concept? Or, maybe just too heavy and extra costly with the added pulley?

I'd really love to know why the design was considered worthwhile since the 1976 Cyclone seemed to work just great, and by 1985 the long cage Suntour XC was a sturdy, fine working and very modern looking model.

LWaB

It wrapped more chain than any standard long cage mech (no chain sag in small/small combinations) and it kept the chain a little higher (and probably cleaner). The major reason is the perennial one (I expect), it looked different.

CAADHEAD

Well to resurrect this thread, I've actually got a Suntour Cyclone 3 pulley rear mech, NOS, still sealed in its packaging on Ebay at the moment if anyones interested, just do a search.

FirstFlight

I remember we sold the cages separately as well so you could "upgrade" your existing derailleur.