Bicycle Mechanics - Help with Suntour Power Ratchet

So two years ago, a rusty old bike appeared in front of my house laying on the side of the road. A day went by so I claimed it as my own and took it into the garage and soon forgot about it.

Now, I have finally gotten around to fixing it up. It is a "Nishiki International" with "Dia-Compe brakes" and "Suntour Power Ratchet shifters." (not sure what year but i'm thinking early 80's?)

Anywho, what brings me here is I now I am cleaning this bike up; taking it apart piece by piece (It is looking darn good) However, upon dissembling the Power Ratchet shifters, the assembly fell apart on me before I could see how it was put together. On top of that I think it may be missing parts as only the right lever had the ratchet system (The left side still worked but didn't *click* like the right side).

I am hoping someone might be able to explain how to put it together or have a link to a diagram (The links on the archived threads have since expired and don't work). Attached are pictures of it apart and all the pieces and a picture of a similar shifter assembled.

The parts that I have are...
...2 levers
-right is set up to work with the ratchet (Small spring inside)
-left is missing the small spring as it was without a ratchet system (Missing parts???)
...1 ratchet cog (Found on the right side only)
...4 small thin washers
...1 large thin washer
...4 thick washers (They are 'covers' to the holes in the levers)
...1 center pin
...1 case (2 pieces; put together in the picture with the center pin)
(the pieces on the far left and far right of the pictures are simply the sides to the assembly)

Please help as I am eager to get this bike on the road.

sorry, i miscounted I have 5 small thin washers. (in the picture two are stuck together)

I found on another post a short explanation of how to put it together but it is missing a few pieces.


The left shifter was unracheted by design. The toothed wheel goes inside the right shifter, with the spring tab in the lever body engaged in the teeth. IIRC, one of the plated washers goes between the lever and mounting bracket, the thin black washers on either side of the lever, then the other chrome washer, the star spring and finally the cover plate.

I'm still hoping someone out there has either more knowloedge or a diagram they can point me to.

These are stem shifters and, as such, only appeared on low-end bikes. They were cheap when made and probably considered expendable as no one expected the bikes to be ridden very much. I expect you will have problems finding repair info as they weren't taken seriously.

I'm still hoping someone out there has either more knowloedge or a diagram they can point me to.
Ok, how about this (http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_itemId=12616):

http://www.velo-pages.com/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=12616&g2_serialNumber=2

John, you are a saint among men. How did you find that!? i honestly spent a good part of yesterday and today looking for that. thanks again, you helped out alot.

Were the stem-mounted Power Shifters appreciably different than the downtube-mounted ones?
I used a pair of those long ago and remember them as very nice.

Because this is my first road bike I can't tell from experience but from my research I can tell that the Nishiki International was one of the higher-end nishiki models; so I am assuming they used high shifters. additionally I haven't found anything negative about the power-ratchet shifters anywhere

Suntour didn't make any crappy Power Ratchet shifters. . . and just because they are stem mounted means nothing more than the period for which they were sold. At one time even some higher end bikes had stem mounted shifters on them . . . . they later became synonymous with cheap bikes as they were copied to make the buyer believe they were getting a higher end bike than they really were. They still do that today.

I know all of Sun Tour's Power Ratchets were good. I had both the clamp-on downtube and the braze-on downtube version on a couple of older bikes and they were great. I replaced a set of Campy Record dt friction shifters with them to get the superior shifting and ability to hold their friction settings.

That said, I don't remember any high line bikes fitted with stem shifters. I remember all really good bikes having downtube shifters and stem shifters being used only on moderate to low cost brands and lower line models in the better brands. What time period are you claiming stem shifters came on high quality bikes?

I have a classic book called "The New Complete Book of Bicycling" by Eugene Sloan from the early 70's. I remember seeing stem mounted shifters in some photos . . so I looked around and found two Schwinn tandems, the T-19 and T-22. These were hand made cro-moly frames made by Schwinn and came with a mix Campy,TA, Regina and Weinmann components .

The book had two printings, 1970 and the updated "New" version in 1974.. . and the information was fairly up to date for the time.

This site shows some vintage Schwinns. http://www.geocities.com/sldatabook/detail7074.html

Fuji, Nishiki and others used stem mounted shifters too at times.


To stay on topic though . . . Suntour did not make cheap Power Ratchet shifters . . .no matter how they were mounted.

To stay on topic though . . . Suntour did not make cheap Power Ratchet shifters . . .no matter how they were mounted.
Thanks for the info on the older bikes. I guess I was limiting myself to European bikes of that period as the Japanese were very new to the American market in the early 70's. Schwinn, of course, had been here forever.

I agree that Sun Tour only made good quality Power Ratchet shifters. If you have to have stem shifters, these are definitely the ones to use.