broken ancient Shimano MTB rear derailleur



JoeSchneider

New Member
Aug 8, 2010
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just inherited old (20 year) Fuji Tahoe 10 speed (2x5) MTB, took out of box, rear derailleur snapped off- it's Shimano, too old to have group name or model number, shifter also Shimano without group/number, they are sort of "triggers" adjacent to the brake levers, not indexed- what is an affordable current rear derailleur that I could substitute without changing shifters, rear casette, etc.?
thanks Joe
 
Just about any, if not all Shimano MTB derailleurs will work; just depends on how much you want to spend. Either Alivio if you don't want to spend much or Deore if you want a higher end more reliable unit without spending more for XT.
 
Froze said:
Just about any, if not all Shimano MTB derailleurs will work; just depends on how much you want to spend. Either Alivio if you don't want to spend much or Deore if you want a higher end more reliable unit without spending more for XT.

Forgive my ignorance, but is it correct to assume that indexing (in indexed shiftng) is at the shifter and that there are no "stops" (other than top and bottom limits) at the derailleur? That would mean that even though the derailleur might handle a 9 gear cluster it will still work fine with a 5 gear cluster? I plan to do this myself since I enjoy learning about the bike in case it fails in some remote area, I just want to get the right hardware the first time.
 
JoeSchneider said:
..is it correct to assume that indexing (in indexed shiftng) is at the shifter and that there are no "stops" (other than top and bottom limits) at the derailleur?

With very few exceptions - yes. Shimano had an old system called Positron, which had the indexing by the derailer. I've also seem an old Sachs/Huret RD with a similar arrangement.

JoeSchneider said:
...That would mean that even though the derailleur might handle a 9 gear cluster it will still work fine with a 5 gear cluster?

Quite probably.

There is a possibility that derailer cages might have been made narrower, which might interfere with a 5 speed chain. But I've never had any problems with the mixing that I've tried.
 
I just put an Alivio on my 7 speed MTB with no issues (8 speed derailleur, 7 speed bike). And my chain is listed as a KMC 5,6,7 speed chain. So that should work fine for you. I think it was like $30 at my bike shop and they installed and set the limiters. Works fine.
 

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