replacing cruddy SunTour indexing

Quoted message said:

The bike in question is equipped with SunTour XCD hubs and Accushift derailers and shifters(flat
bar variety). It never did shift all that well, but now that it's getting rather long in the tooth
the shifting is worse, to the point that the owner is complaining. Since the owner is my wife, I
have to do something about it.

The stuff has now been orphaned, and since the hub is of a rather stupid design that precludes
good adjustment of the bearings anyway, I suppose I have to replace the hub, which means a new
rear derailer, shifter and cassette, and chain.

Your suggestions, please, on suitable and reasonably inexpensive parts. In particular, I would
like to use the existing rim and spokes, so is any commonly available hub similar enough in flange
spacing and diameter to allow that? The present hub flanges are about 51mm apart and 48 spoke hole
circle diameter.

Re-using spokes is a false economy if you place any value at all on your time.

Here's a tip that might help: If her bike has 6-speed SunTour shifters, they will generally work
fine with Shimano 7-speed stuff! I've done this on quite a few bikes, and it has always worked. You
will need a Shimano rear derailer, and pretty much any 7-speed freewheel or cassette. Since you're
replacing the hub anyway, it would make more sense to upgrade to a cassette system.

Sheldon "Seven From Six" Brown +--------------------------------------------------+
| The less you bet, the more you lose if you win | --Alan Rudolph (_Trixie_) |
+--------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041 harriscyclery.comharriscyclery.comOpen ↗ Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
captainbike.comcaptainbike.comOpen ↗ sheldonbrown.comsheldonbrown.comOpen ↗

Before you throw away a great system, you should get a new set of shift cables with a low-friction
liner. This can solve many of your problems.

I would still be using my SunTour Accushift if I hadn't gotten a 9 speed 12-34 cassette wheel. Even
then I ran it as a 7 speed with the SunTour rear derailleur. When I finally got a Shimano down tube
9 speed lever. I could only run the 12 thru the 30 tooth cogs as the short cage of the SunTour
derailleur could not handle the long necessary chain.

Of course I had a good low-friction set of cable and housing for the rear derailleur before I bought
the fancy Shimano wheel WT-7700 wheel set.

You will still need a good low-friction cable housing and cable regardless of what you use for the
upgrade. But now I am repeating my self.
--

Cy Galley - Webmaster www.qcbc.org

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

Quoted message said:

The bike in question is equipped with SunTour XCD hubs and Accushift derailers and shifters(flat
bar variety). It never did shift all that well, but now that it's getting rather long in the tooth
the shifting is worse, to the point that the owner is complaining. Since the owner is my wife, I
have to do something about it.

The stuff has now been orphaned, and since the hub is of a rather stupid design that precludes
good adjustment of the bearings anyway, I suppose I have to replace the hub, which means a new
rear derailer, shifter and cassette, and chain.

Your suggestions, please, on suitable and reasonably inexpensive parts. In particular, I would
like to use the existing rim and spokes, so is any commonly available hub similar enough in flange
spacing and diameter to allow that? The present hub flanges are about 51mm apart and 48 spoke hole
circle diameter.

Ted Bennett