Date these deraileurs

Ken Marcet said:

Cleaning the grime from these vintage, read "old" parts I uncovered

the

Quoted message said:

model names of "Eagle" for the rear, and "Thunderbird"for the front,

both

Quoted message said:

are Shimano.
Can anyone narrow down the years these were made? I know it is

somewhere in

Quoted message said:

the late 60's to mid 70's. Was kind on hoping too narrow it down to a

few

Quoted message said:

years.

Ken

I think that's about as narrow as you'll get. Shimano in that time
period did not change their model designations every couple years as
they do now. I would guess early to mid-'70's is most likely. I'm not
an authority, though.

Jeff

According to "The Dancing Chain" (THE book about the history of
derailleurs), 4 different "Eagle" models were first introduced in 1975.
Two were classified as "low price medium range" and the other 2 "low
price wide range". There's no indication when they ceased production.

Bob H.

Ken Marcet said:

Cleaning the grime from these vintage, read "old" parts I uncovered the
model names of "Eagle" for the rear, and "Thunderbird"for the front, both
are Shimano.
Can anyone narrow down the years these were made? I know it is somewhere in
the late 60's to mid 70's. Was kind on hoping too narrow it down to a few
years.

Seventies.

Eagle, Thunderbird, Lark, Lark-W, Crane, all the other birds
and then Poseidon.

err, Positron.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Jeff

Bob Hanson said:

According to "The Dancing Chain" (THE book about the history of
derailleurs), 4 different "Eagle" models were first introduced in 1975.
Two were classified as "low price medium range" and the other 2 "low
price wide range". There's no indication when they ceased production.

I'm pretty sure I had a bike with an Eagle rear, purchased new in 1972.

Mark Janeba

oh i get it now! Ha Ha

"JeffWills" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Jeff

Mark Janeba said:

Bob Hanson said:

According to "The Dancing Chain" (THE book about the history of
derailleurs), 4 different "Eagle" models were first introduced in 1975.
Two were classified as "low price medium range" and the other 2 "low
price wide range". There's no indication when they ceased production.

Quoted message said:

I'm pretty sure I had a bike with an Eagle rear, purchased new in 1972.

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

JeffWills said:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Does your wife have Campy, Shimano or SRAM ESP shifter compatible spacing?

--
Tom Sherman - Earth

Donald Gillies said:

Mark Janeba said:

I'm pretty sure I had a bike with an Eagle rear, purchased new in 1972.

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

It's been a long time, and the guard you describe is familiar. But, um,
- which one had the guard? Lark or Eagle?

As I think of it, the bike brand was "American Eagle", precursor to
Nishiki, I think - but I still thought the rear der. was an Eagle also.

Did they also market the Bogie model at that time?

Mark

"Donald Gillies" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Mark Janeba said:

Bob Hanson said:

According to "The Dancing Chain" (THE book about the history of
derailleurs), 4 different "Eagle" models were first introduced in 1975.
Two were classified as "low price medium range" and the other 2 "low
price wide range". There's no indication when they ceased production.

Quoted message said:

I'm pretty sure I had a bike with an Eagle rear, purchased new in 1972.

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA

That is exactly what mine looks like! And it has the model name "Eagle" on
it.

Ken

"Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

JeffWills said:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
wife index, she cross-references, too!

Does your wife have Campy, Shimano or SRAM ESP shifter compatible spacing?

Well if she indexes and cross references, perhaps she is universal.

Quoted message said:

--
Tom Sherman - Earth

Tom Sherman said:

JeffWills said:

Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only

does my

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

wife index, she cross-references, too!

Does your wife have Campy, Shimano or SRAM ESP shifter compatible

spacing?

Quoted message said:

--
Tom Sherman - Earth

Asking those kinds of questions will cause her to shift unpredictably.

Jeff Wills - Mars, of course

Mark Janeba said:

Quoted message said:

Are you sure it's not a Lark ?? They look pretty similar, if my badly
rusted memory serves ... One has a "moon unit" metal C-shaped guard
as you look at the freewheel, with many large holes all the way along
it ... a popular style during the moon program, 1965-1973.

The Lark and the Eagle were identical, except that the Eagle had an
additional "bumper" to protect it from impact, and an extra heavy duty
adapter claw.

These were the best shifting derailers money could buy through the early
'80s. Nothing else came close. They're also probably the sturdiest
derailers ever made. As to weight...well, you can't have everything.

They also had a great "pre-selector" feature: The cable anchor bolt was
mounted on a pivoting arm with a stiff spring (didn't require a separate
spring, it used the normally unoccupied end of the parallelogram return
spring.)

With this system, if you forgot to downshift as you came to a stop, you
could just yank the lever back to the position that corresponded to
whichever gear you preferred for starting up. With most derailers this
would bust the cable, but with the Lark/Eagle the spring loaded arm
would deflect, then as soon as you started to pedal, the derailer would
down shift to the desired gear.

I've got a 400LX on my Rambouillet, I think this was the last Shimano
model to have this nifty feature. Never understood why they stopped
doing it...

Sheldon "For The Birds" Brown
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