Bicycle Mechanics - Suntour Honor 7spd. compatible..

I need help from the pros. Would a Suntour Honor rear derailleur happen to be compatible with a 7spd. or 8spd. cassette. I am getting a set of lightly used Weinmann wheels so I'm planning on changing from a freewheel to cassette. I'm trying to upgrade an older Nishiki 5spd. with stem friction shifters. I tried to do a search of old posts but did'nt find much. I know I may need to spread the spacing but that is pretty straight forward. This is a budget build so expense is a concern,but I still want to do it right and have a reliable bike in the end. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks..Jeff

Should work if you adjust the limit screws. Roger

My brothers 72? TAKARA had (vandalism) an Honor Rder. It got trashed, but IIRC, it had quite a bit of "range" within the limit screws. Enough that adding a cog or 2 in the back "seemed" quite "doable" at the time. You might have to redish the wheel some or "tweek" things a bit, but it seems you are aware of that. I'd suggest you go for it with say, a 90% confidence factor?
BTW, I put on a used entry level (Wal Mart) Shimano Rder for a replacement without any problem.

Cool, I think I'll give it a shot. This is my first project bike so I'm sure I'll learn alot along the way. I got it from a thrift store for $30 so I really don't have anything to lose. It's nice to have a trainer I can mount it on to make all the adjustments. It looked as if it had alot of range. I found a group of Shimano SIS parts on Ebay that where taken off of one of the new Schwinn Varsity bikes being sold at Walmart. I know they won't be the quality of the old stuff but will work fine for this bike. I'm not really worried about keeping it all original. Just functional and fun to ride..

Should be possible. If not, I know pretty much any shimano rear derailleur made after about 85 will work and can be had on ebay for next to nothing lightly used.

Should work if you stay with friction shift. Suntour used non-linear indexing, i.e. the freewheels had different width spacers between each cog (see Sheldon's site, he has full details). So the der would not fit a Shimano freewheel/cassette if you try indexing; but in friction mode the only potential limitation would be total travel. Since 7 and 8-sp is barely wider than 5-sp (more cogs but closer spacing), odds are it will work. Worst case, you but a used old rear der for $15 if it does not work - but I'd try first.