another mystery Nishiki
 

My latest dumpster find is another Nishiki road bike. Just like the last one, the model name is scratched off. It is a Nishiki "Touring Series" lugged frame made in Taiwan. It had steel handle bars and big, clunky Shimano stem shifters, a Shimano SIS rear derailleur, and a genaric Shimano front derailleur. I'm guessing it's pretty low end, and may be a bit newer then my last find (it has a screw on plastic cable guide on the bottom bracket shell, and brazed on cable stops on the downtube). I don't even know if I want to actually keep it or not. I already have too many old trash picked bikes. Oh wait! Is that even possible? :)

On closer inspection, the bike has Suntour shifters, not Shimano, so I'm guessing either the derailleurs or the shifters are not origional. It also has an SR alloy stem.

Unless the under-the-BB cable routing is a retrofit, you have an early 1980s bike. It sounds like a suitable general-purpose theft-resistant beater, so if that's what you need just now, go for it!

If you post the make and model of cranks and brakes, it should enable us to tell which of the shifters or derailleurs are original. The rim and hub combination would also help. Stem shifters typically indicate an entry level model. However, based on the limited info, I think I'd push the age forward into the mid-1980s.

It didn't have cranks or BB, but I think the brakes are Dia compe side pulls. There were some beat up aluminum 27" wheels in the dumpster with the rest of the bike, but they weren't attached, so I don't know if they were the wheels from the Nishiki. If they were, they had alloy rims, alloy hubs (I think), bolt on axles front and rear, and the rear had a six speed freewheel. I'm assuming it used cheap non-aero brake levers with the quick release on them because the brakes don't have a QR.

The Dia-Compe side-pulls indicate that the SunTour stem shifters are probably original and that the Shimano derailleurs are likely replacements. The closest match that I have in my list of Nishiki models is a 1984 Custom Sport. It had SunTour stem shifters with Dia-Compe 500 side-pulls. It had 27" Araya aluminum rims.

Those Dia-Compe brakes may have a date code on the back of the calipers or inside the levers. There should also be a date code on the stem, below the insertion mark.

That's what I was thinking; it sounds a lot like a couple of '84 Nishiki Sports frames I've got.