Have an 83 Expedition here in Seattle I bought new 36 years ago that I need to clean up... does anyone have a recommendation on matching paint for touch up work? I’ve got a set of decals from velocals and thinking about painting or powder coating but will try to keep the original paint first.

And while I’m at it, any suggestions on front derailleur? I got rid of the Mountech years ago and replaced with an alpha 5000 but doesn’t work well. I can get a mountech on eBay but wondering if there are other suggestions. Running the Sugino AT triple, currently with 48/38/26 but I’ve got a bunch of other Sugino chainrings and will probably run a 52 for big ring as I’m in decent shape with lots of COVID miles on my road bike.

Timely question. I have an ‘84 Sequoia that needs touching up as well and would love to find a good color match

I can't speak to the paint, but check out the Shimano DX derailleurs as possible replacements. I have those on 3 bikes now (1 Friction 3x5, 2 Indexed 3x7) and they work great!

The Mountech front is about as good as front derailleurs get. The rear... not so much- depending on the version it was either a time bomb or clunky and clumsy. Either way- it was too complex for what it needed to do. But the front was fantastic- it had a huge range and it was reasonably heavy duty all the while it's still lighter than many "racing" derailleurs these days.

I like to have things in a 'matchy-matchy' sort of way- even if that 'match' is in my head, and if it doesn't match or meet my aesthetic expectations it'll bug the living daylights out of me. So I guess it depends on what you have for your rear derailleur. Any of the old ATB derailleurs should be good on a 26-38-50 triple- I don't have any experience going above 50- I don't know about the cage arc.

If you're rolling with pre 1986-ish derailleurs- I'd go Mountech.

If you've upgraded the rear derailleur to an @5000... I'd want to get something fancier on there. If you like Suntour- XC Pro and XC Comp are both dominant and would look cool as all get-out on there. If you like Shimano- I'd recommend MT-60 Deore, MT-62 Deore II, the aforementioned M650 Deore DX, and of course, M735 Deore XT.

The Shimano stuff is cool because if you choose to change to indexing- your choices are much more wide open- all the old ATB SIS stuff uses the same pull ratio and Shimano 6,7 and 8 speed stuff is pretty ubiquitous. MT-60 is cool because it's all silver- has a good classic look to it. MT-62 and M650 are silver with the black decals... if the decals aren't faded or coming off- it looks sharp. Deore XT from M730 to M735 is among the best of its day (I think just below Suntour's XC Pro), and it looks really nice- but the M735 is the nicest.

Of course, this is just me being a dork and spending someone else's money.

Thanks Golden Boy for the input! Right now I’ve got the alpha 5000 up front and a Deore XT M739 in rear (the Mountech rear derailleur failed years ago). Running bar end friction shifters so indexing not a consideration - I like the all silver look of the Deore MT 60 and could go with that both front and rear.

I'll second the Mountech front derailleur. Flawless performance. Have them paired with Cyclone GT RD's on 3 bikes.

Ordered both a Suntour Mountech in very good shape and a Suntour Alpine Tech in new old stock condition from eBay. The later is supposed to handle a wider range, 26 tooth difference, and is all silver, so one of the derailleur should work functionally and aesthetically. Will see how they look with the Deore XT m739 in rear and replace that if too modern...

The AG Tech is a whole lot of steel instead of alloy. The Mountech is a FAR superior unit.

I probably shouldn't have gone on and on without hearing YOUR vision of YOUR bike. . Sorry!

IMO- if you keep the M739- I think I'd look at the M737 FD- It's much more classic looking than the M739 but a little more of the modern style to match.

If you were to go for older stuff... Suntour's top of the line was "XC." Just plain ol' XC. My favorite is the triple pulley XC derailleur. It looks a little goofy, but that thing can wrap a ton of chain! My triple pulley XC is my nicest shifting friction shifter. Underneath XC was XC Sport.

Shortly thereafter, the top of the line derailleur was XC 9000- and the XC Sport 7000 was under that.

Following that, around 1989/90, was XC Pro followed by XC Comp- IMO- the XC Pro was the best of all the ATB/MTB derailleurs- and it really looked good on there.

I love swapping parts around, and my Trek 720 was my test bed- a bike I love to ride- and put it through it's paces with different derailleurs. I'll blab your ears off about my favorites and what I've used and swapped around, and what I think is cool, or looks cool or whatever...

Here's my 1985 Trek 720 with the XC triple pulley

Trek 720 w Triple Pulley by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


The same bike with a Suntour XC Pro

IMG_5422 by Dave The Golden Boy, on Flickr


These were the two rear derailleurs that I used on this bike the longest in friction mode. The others that I used on this bike were Suntour Le Tech, Suntour Cyclone GT (both 1st and 2nd generation), Suntour V GT-Luxe, Suntour Mountech (2nd gen), Shimano MT-60, M735 XT, and Crane. I might be missing some. My Trek 620 ran for the past 5 or so years with an XC Pro and and XC Comp- the Comp was on it the longest. The derailleurs I actively didn't like (on my 720) were the Le Tech and the Mountech.

Touch up paint on a touring bike? Let it ride!