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Frame width will be your limiting factor for gearing, they are 126mm wide. You can still find good wide range freewheels ie 13-30, or the other option is to fit a shimano Uniglide rear hub with a 7 UG cassette. You could then index a shimano system. Suntour spacing is different again (and there are 3 sub variants) so you'd need the matching shifters and mech for freewheel. The xt mech you have will obviously be friction at the mo, can't see how you could index it other than go UG. I actually have a NOS DX MT63 126mm solid axle hub that you can have for £20 if you wanted to go down that path? I can't see how 8s would work unless you cold set the frame to 130mm and fitted a Hyperglide road hub.
joel_austen-
This reminds me of the nightmare I'm trying to sus for my '82 Bridgestone Eurasia.
Currently got a 50-42, 13-24 setup which is a bit too big for me. Looking at fitting a NOS Campag Rally RD and Suntour New Winner freehub that I came across. Only issue is trying to figure if if I should run it as 7sp, or take apart the freehub and remove one of the sprokets. It appears it has the flexibility to run as 6 or 7sp.
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I’ll just bang an 8 speed freewheel on it
I’ve done that loads of times with old 126mm rear ends. I’ve had ten speed in some quite happily tbh.
Not bothered about range to much as it’s a triple up front. Same with indexing, it’s basically just lazy gear shifting. Far more satisfying learning to play the friction shifter trombone.
Me and my hammer tend not to over think things, so we’ll see where we get to, if it stays 7 speed, all good. Then I’ll just save for Etap and disc tabs...
motoko
Ecobeard
My gut is that’s it’s and 87, just an early one. As you say the shifters and the risers where what did me, but I could see that the Stem wasn’t right!
Hopefully I’ll get it tomorrow evening (it’s just in quarantine in Brockley at the moment) and it will get a full going over in the pub post hills.
It’s got some ‘upgrades’ on it. An XT rear mech, which is an upgrade, so 8 speed is an option (are these hubs freewheel, I assume they are?) and a new chain set, which looks interesting.
Keen for a bullmoose and have the eBay search going, just wondered if you had found a stash somewhere.
More to follow tomorrow