I just got a SR front derailleur for my 1978 Raleigh Professional - which has 1973 or 1974 era Record cranks. The cranks have a 3 in a diamond engraved on the inside. (I had them from a 74 or 75 Motobecane le Champion that got hit by a car). Mt old derailleurs were NR Patent 72 in back and a flat cage Record in front (from the same le Champion). The flat cage Record had no problems, but this drilled out SR front derailleur with that damned "safety lip" is not allowing me enough clearance b/w the outer cage and the crank arm in 12th gear. Either the chain rubs against the inside of the outer cage plate or the outside of the cage plate hits the crank arm. I'm running a Regina Oro chain and freewheel and remember that when I first got the bike 30 years ago the rear derailleur's inner cage plate hit the spokes in 1st gear. So the store added a small spacer - maybe 1mm or 2mm to the hub before the freewheel is attached. I know that this caused the freewheel to move that amount right, and this might be causing the vexing front cage problem, but I didn't have this problem with the old flat cage Record derailleur.

Any ideas?? Maybe a rear spacer half the width of the current one? I think I recall a posting on a web site that mentioned that the front crank spacing was increased to accomodate the safety lip on the curver plate front derailleurs, but I can't remember the site. I'd like to use the SR front changer, but don't want to wear a groove in my crank arm either.

found that web site:

http://www.velo-retro.com/tline.html