Originally Posted by
Baytree
Do you mean stem shifters like these?
They're pretty easy to find on ebay for only a few dollars. They should work just fine with pretty much any derailleur as long as you adjust them right. A lot of people knock stem shifters, but personally I like them better than downtubes.
Baytree:
This thread could be a bit confusing is because I've been talking about two bikes:
1) Rusty Free Spirit I picked up for $10 which I've been using to try to learn basic repair stuff about bikes. This bike is already up and running. This one has on stem shifters that were broken. On the advice on someone here, I found a Shimano replacement for $10 bucks.... I cleaned up the old Simplex derailleur and put it back on. It works just fine.
2) My neighbor ended up giving me almost a complete SR road frame and components, no wheels and with wonderful Suntour Superbe components which I have learned now that are old but quality. The story is that not knowing what I was doing, I was trying to install those to the old Free Spirit.... The most memorable comment was that that would be like putting a silk purse on a sow's ear....
the end of that story is that now I have two separate projects. The FS and the SR Maxima in optimal shape but no wheels or crankset/BB. A valuable lesson hat I have learned is that unless you have a bunch of parts lying around from previous projects or whatever, it isn't cost effective to rebuild a bike. In my case, if I purchase a crankset, headset and wheels, I will have overpasses the cost of the bike itself.... The problem now is that the wife wants that bike built for her....
No pressure....