Bicycle Mechanics - RSX Front Derailleur replacement/interchange?

The bike is a 1996 Cannondale 2.8 R500 with 3x8 (26/36/46), just bought cheaply knowing it had "shifter issues."

Jim McVey has the shifters and will be restoring their functionality.

Another issue is the not-original Suntour generic front derailleur - it's a no-go since the cage hits the chainstay when the derailleur is mounted down near the chainring where it's supposed to be.

I'm searching eBay etc. for a 31.8mm RSX A410 front derailleur - what other ones will work? (Low cost solution preferred, this will be an interim ride for my tweener son, and then either sold whole or parts moved to a larger frame than the 52 I have. This bike has maybe 200 miles on it as far as I can tell).

Thanks,

Ron

I'd think most clamp-on Shimano triple FDs from the era would work. MTB-specific ones like Deore would probably work best with your smaller rings.

The Sora triple crank on my son's '98 Trek was also 46/36/26 and came with an RX-100 triple front derailleur which was a slightly less well finished twin of the 105 triple from the same time. So any RX-100 or 105 8-speed era triple fd should work fine. If you can't find one with a 31.8 mm clamp, see if you can get a braze-on version and a 31.8 mm adapter clamp.

Thanks gents, will be looking as advised.

Shimano MTB front derailleurs need a lot more cable pulled than road ones so this will not work with a road indexed shifter. (Rear shifting is compatible for road/mtb except for 10 speed). A downtube friction shifter may be fine on the front if it can pull enough before it runs out of travel. The details are in an excellent article on the UK CTC website.

All of this sounds familiar, as I had the exact same setup on the same bike at one time. I changed out to a 105 derailler with excellent results.