Originally Posted by
rickpaulos
Will the Tourney 7 speed sti shifters work with the Suntour derailleurs?
Maybe on the front, but not on the rear. The pull ratio on the Suntour RD isn’t quite right to work with Shimano index spacing. You can get 3, maybe 4 gears to work, but not more. Which is a shame, because the Vx is a nice piece of hardware, and yours appears to be in good shape.
I have a V-Gt that I run with a modern Shimano FW (6-speed) and an 8-speed KMC chain. The modern chain and cog profiles do so much to improve shifting compared to the flat-sided 1970s OE, I don’t miss the indexing.
If if your friend just wants on-the-hoods shifting, you could explore using a Gevenalle style shifter, along with a modern FW and chain, would give good performance out of the original hardware.