Date these deraileurs

[Ken Marcet]

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.

Ken

--
More of my mind dribblings: http://mind-dribble.blogspot.com/
And my homepage: http://kcm-home.tripod.com/

 

[JeffWills]

Ken Marcet wrote:
> 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.
>
> 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

 

[Bob Hanson]

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.

 

[A Muzi]

Ken Marcet wrote:
> 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

 

[JeffWills]

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

Jeff

 

[Mark Janeba]

Bob Hanson wrote:
> 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

 

[Ken Marcet]

oh i get it now! Ha Ha

"JeffWills" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Also, I gave up dating derailleurs when I got married. Not only does my
> wife index, she cross-references, too!
>
> Jeff
>

 

[Donald Gillies]

Mark Janeba <[email protected]> writes:

>Bob Hanson wrote:
>> 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.

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

 

[Tom Sherman]

JeffWills wrote:

> 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

 

[Mark Janeba]

Donald Gillies wrote:

> Mark Janeba <[email protected]> writes:
>>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

 

[Ken Marcet]

"Donald Gillies" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Mark Janeba <[email protected]> writes:
>
> >Bob Hanson wrote:
> >> 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.
>
> 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

 

[Ken Marcet]

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


>
> --
> Tom Sherman - Earth
>

 

[JeffWills]

Tom Sherman wrote:
> JeffWills wrote:
>
> > 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

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

Jeff Wills - Mars, of course

 

[Sheldon Brown]

Mark Janeba wrote:

>>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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