[Squidward]

I've seen Campyonly.com and they don't cover enough of the late 80's and early 90's to be of much help. The small pictures don't help much, neither (can't see enough detail).

The brake calipers look like the ones from this picture.

But the rear derailleur and brake levers look like the ones from this one.

The bike is an old Atala that my buddy said he bought new in '89. That isn't to say that he bought the bike with these components (he could have put them onto the bike after he bought it). I suppose I can post pictures of the parts here to get them ID'd.

Would it be considered heresy to combine the old rear derailleur with 10-speed Ergo shifters and Shimano rear freehub/10-speed cassette? I'm looking at this site and trying to get ideas for this bike.

 

[Squidward]

I took the rear derailleur off the bike today and found out that the upper pivot does not have a spring in it (flops around loosely). It was made that way. The derailleur has two screws on opposite ends of the parallelogram that allow you to adjust the angle that the parallelogram swings (straight in like old Suntour or diagonally like Shimano).

 

[Friction_Shifter]

suntour invented the slant parallelogram in 1964. the patent expired in 1984. you must be referring to a pre 1964 suntour derailler and a post 84 shimano.

post pictures on retro forum and/or here(retro may get more responses). Someone will ID your stuff.

 

[Squidward]

Hey, thanks! Yeah, I got the two backwards.

Un fortunately for me, I broke the clamp to the front derailleur today so I will have to buy one for this bike.

 

[Mark McM]

First generation Chorus

I took the rear derailleur off the bike today and found out that the upper pivot does not have a spring in it (flops around loosely). It was made that way. The derailleur has two screws on opposite ends of the parallelogram that allow you to adjust the angle that the parallelogram swings (straight in like old Suntour or diagonally like Shimano).

You are describing the first generation Chorus derailleur, which came out around 1987. This is the only derailleur I am aware of which had an adjustable angle slant parallellogram. This derailleur was only out for a few years before it was replaced with a standard, double pivot spring fixed angle slant parallellogram (around 1990 or 1991). The first generation Chorus derailleur existed in the era of the Syncro system, Campagnolo's first (and failed) attempt at indexed shifting.

 

[Squidward]

Thanks, Mark!

I spoke with my co-worker today who sold me the bike and he told me that the rear derailleur, shifters, cranks, and brakes/levers are early Chorus while the headset and front derailleur are Athena.

The other day I was playing with different combinations of gears, shifters, and positions on that derailleur and I found that, in the "Suntour mode" with Suntour GPX shifters in the six-speed mode that it indexes a Shimano 8-speed cassette just fine. The shift from the smallest cog to the next one takes a little coaxing, though, so I'll probably add a little spacer between the cable and the shifter barrel to increase, slightly, the amount of pull on those two gears to get this thing shifting perfectly. Suntour's GPX shifters are adjustable between 6-speed and 7-speed spacing as well as a friction mode. Unlike other indexed shifting systems, though, these have more than 5 or 6 clicks so you can use these with more gears if you can get the spacing right at the rear derailleur.