Suntour Cassette conundrum

[Rod_Saetan]

Oh dear. So, being a bit obvious and very late to the party, it now makes sense that Suntour was Betamax to Shimano's VHS, and why it all went wrong for them

Are the chains specific too?

Suntour claim that chains were specific, though they also insisted that you needed to use their cables for the gears to index too, neither is strictly true. Its hard to see where it all went wrong for them…

 

[ishaw]

In my experience, everything xc pro was awesome kit. Dare I say better than any Shimano equivalent.

The only issue was the rear hub and cassette due to the proprietary fitting.

That said, it lasts so if you did break out the expensive cassette you bought, it will probably outlast the bike.

Due to the freehub and cassette splines, plus the freehub design mating to the hub, there aren't any other options I'm aware of. Again, it's well engineered stuff with grease ports so if maintained, lasts ages.

I've run 7/8sp shifters with Shimano drive train and not had issues, it was good enough for the pace racing team bitd, and mint sauce too.

I don't recall having issues running a non suntour chain either, same goes for cables, though I did once have a build with full xc pro MD 8 speed with the correct chain and cables and that was just fine too.

Some say the shifting of you run a Shimano cassette with suntour isn't quite perfect as I believe the cassette spacing is slightly different, but I managed to get it running sweetly enough for me.

 

[FluffyChicken]

As mentioned you need Suntour, and the specific freehub that went with that cassette, MD needs MD freehubs. 7 needs 7 and 8 needs 8.
So that 4 different ones already (by 1993)
At least for MTB. They will tend to be AP-II PowerFlo cassettes.

Which 8 speed did you get MD or normal ?

Here's the 1992 setups, 8 speed MicroDrive came in 1993
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery...s/Suntour+Cassette+1992+instructions.jpg.html


Anything with the lockring, is Shimano compatible and 1995+ under the Plug&Play PFR/PFF pranding (iirc) I have the catalogues scans somewhere of these later years


So find yourself a matching hub (the chains where just Sachs Sedis sort of things really).

 

[Bike Hoarder]

Fantastic resource as always @FluffyChicken

There's an eBay seller selling NOS sachs-sedis chains atm.

https://ebay.us/m/sSVlY4

These will work with 7spd, and 8spd Suntour, right?

 

[Markybeau]

As mentioned you need Suntour, and the specific freehub that went with that cassette, MD needs MD freehubs. 7 needs 7 and 8 needs 8.
So that 4 different ones already (by 1993)
At least for MTB. They will tend to be AP-II PowerFlo cassettes.

Which 8 speed did you get MD or normal ?

Here's the 1992 setups, 8 speed MicroDrive came in 1993
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery...s/Suntour+Cassette+1992+instructions.jpg.html


Anything with the lockring, is Shimano compatible and 1995+ under the Plug&Play PFR/PFF pranding (iirc) I have the catalogues scans somewhere of these later years


So find yourself a matching hub (the chains where just Sachs Sedis sort of things really).

I've got MD hubs in 7 and 8 with cassettes on both. I was looking for spares and chains. Especially chains. Compatability is more important that period correct at the moment.

 

[FluffyChicken]

I'd probably run SRAM850 PC51 or KMC Z series, as they are probably way more advanced than the just gone low profile (and look odd) Suntour chain)
But any 7/8 speed chain should be fine. It's just a chain. I don't remember having power links back then, Think they came a bit later.

https://www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/documents_-_suntour.html for more documents, better layout than on here.

I always ran the Sedis chanes (which is now SRAM)

Search for a CH-APII if you want to see the old chain


Have you taken the cassette of your hubs, not always easy ;-)

 

[Bike Hoarder]

https://flic.kr/p/e7Np9a

Had to remove this one with a grinder!