Harold74

I have a bit of an odd situation in that I'm assembling an old Nishiki that somebody else took apart. I'm starting to see the weakness in this approach in that it makes it harder for me to put things back together. Anyhow, the bike came with a vintage derailleur that I like very much. Unfortunately, I'm left to guess at how the cable routing works for the derailleur. This has led me to have two questions that I'm seeking help with:

1) Have I got the routing correct in the first pic below? This would be my first time dealing with a derailleur where the cable actually passes through the body of the unit. I can't say that I'm enjoying the experience.

2) The thing that I'm assuming to be the pinch bolt has no square washer plate beneath it as I'm used to seeing on other bicycle mech. Should there be such a plate? I don't want to knock myself out trying to cable this thing only to realize that I never had a chance to begin with because I'm missing a part.

I'm fixing this bike up as a low value rider. You know, to ride to the liquor store and probably not lock up, path ride with the wife... stuff like that. If the derailleur is missing a part that's at all difficult or expensive to get, I'll probably just toss on new Claris derailleur and leave it at that, period correctness be damned.

SurferRosa

Isn't it this one?

https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site...leur_4300.html

Yes, that's the cable anchor bolt. Before you mount the derailleur, use a spare cable to make sure that you've got it routed correctly. Shouldn't be that hard to hold it in your hand, route the cable, pinch it tight, and see if it holds. Clean it up before you mount it.

1simplexnut

yep your routing of cable is correct .
My one had no plate and has held up fine :-)

Harold74

That is great to know, thank you. The derailleur is my favorite part of the bike and I'm glad that it sounds as though I'll be able to retain it. I'll get out my tweezers and magnifying glass to get this thing set up...

Velo Mule

I thought Suntour made the best stuff back in the late '70's and into the '80's, but this ARX cable routing had me wondering why change a good thing. It made it more difficult to run the cable through to the clamp. It is not terrible, however, what problem did it solve? Yea, it is supposed to be aero, smoother looking and use an allen key instead of a wrench to cinch the clamp down.

I have an ARX on one of my bikes, maybe one that I sold, and it does shift well. Running the cable into the clamp is a once in a long while thing, so with that behind you, enjoy the ride.

steelbikeguy

The Mark II version of the SunTour Cyclone had a similar cable clamp mechanism. Not really my favorite, since it complicates things without any real benefit. This was the era of "aerodynamics", when the shape of components became streamlined, typically at the expense of weight and complexity.







Steve in Peoria

noobinsf 

Be careful — things get even more complicated if you accidentally strip the cinch bolt or round out the Allen flats. Replacement means finding a donor derailleur or something creative.

Harold74

Noted. I recently stripped the Allen bolts on some nice bar ends so I'm pretty sensitive to this. One thing great about this RD is that I've already had all of the bolts and screws pulled out and antiseized. I've snapped or stripped a lot of twisty things on old components in the past.

rgvg

That link to disraeli gears shows a picture of the exploded view and it does have a square washer in the picture. Also I have an arx in front of me from a bike I am working on, and yes, it does have that square plate. It seems easy to thread the cable as it goes right between the square washer and the other bit where the bolt threads into. But if it works without it, I guess it works without it.

Harold74

Argh.... such an emotional roller coaster!

1simplexnut

Thats part of the fun of old bikes and old bike bits .
Had another mech here in the spares box . No plate there either .
I suppose if you dont trust it without it would pretty simple to make a replacement.
It is just a piece of steel with a hole in it

Harold74

I may have met with a bit of good luck on this. I've got a badly damaged Miyata 610 frame in the garage that I've been meaning to divest myself of. I bought it for $50 to cannibalize for parts. That was still too much to pay in retrospect but I now believe that I've got a fighting chance of being able to pull the front derailleur washer plate off of that bike to put on the Suntour rear derailleur that is the subject of this thread. I haven't tried it yet but I'm hopeful. I tinkered with slapping my spare, Claris derailleur on instead and boy is that disappointing aesthetically.

The new washer plate has a keeper nub on it that might be a problem but I can probably grind that off if necessary.

T-Mar

As noted., there was a rectangular washer under the cable bolt head. This washer had a whale tail on it that helped guide the cable into position, facilitating installation.

While the revised routing was more aerodynamic, it was also a weight saving measure, eliminating the cable retainer extensions on the rear parallelogram arms of earlier SunTour models at this level. However, I suspect that the real reason was cost savings. It allowed Maeda to to to fabricate the rear parallelogram arm from a smaller piece of steel, resulting in more efficient use of raw material.