Albion 

Hi Maohaus, here's what I know about my old Araya:Araya made a short foray into complete bikes before returning to rims alone. Mine was literally pulled out of caleche (hard, Arizona clay) from a hoarder's back yard. Sadly the model name faced the sun and was on a soft, black stencil or decal and it was mostly gone when I bought the bike.

The BB shows C432754, nothing on the dropouts. Hummer advised, as part of a discussion with the learned T-Mar: “The serial number on your Araya is an Araya serial number, not Bridgestone. In 1977 Araya started to put an ‘ARY’ prefix on their serial numbers. Araya frames built prior to that had serial numbers without the prefix. The letter "C" at the start of the serial number is for the month of frame manufacture, C = March. The first digit "4" is for the year of frame manufacture, 4 = 1974.”

T-Mar also provided date information on the rear derailleur: ". . . the date code (on the RD) is QB, which represents, February 1974, which should make the frame a 1974 model."

I hope this is of interest!

Nothing special but fits like a glove . . .




Basic frame work . . .

CroMo Mike 

You're probably right.

daverup 

For a bit more Araya, here is my post from October,
Araya Road 821 followed me home

Maohaus

Very nice restoration! I sold Araya bikes for many years in the70's. Your bike looks like a model M35. I think the model numbers may have been unique to the various bike distributors who imported the bikes. We had a basic model with steel crank and rims, a middle model (yours) with allow crank, and then they had the professional M45. Really nice quality utilitarian bikes. We sold and serviced a lot of them and everyone loved them.

Albion 

First, thank you to all who have kindly commented. I have done the usual checks - cable tension, limit screws engaging, front-to-back alignment. The parallelogram parts of the FD appear to be pivoting properly. Here's a couple of things noticed while checking:

• The chain sits on top of the chainring when shifting up for longer than I am used to seeing, the photo below is from the bike on a stand.
• The tension on the chain from the jockey wheel seems to be about half that of the "Fuji Vx" RD on my 1980 Fuji.
• The cage seems to be further back than is usual in the smaller chainring - maybe the chain needs shortening?
• 
  Chain not engaging until late?
  
  Low . . .
  
  High.

ehcoplex

Hmm. Did you do the 'big-big' chain-length determining method? Bike looks lovely, BTW!

Albion 

Here's a photo of how the cage sits on the largest size front and back, also smallest size ditto. I would rather show my ignorance than remain so - could you mention what big-big indicates?


Maximum tension

Minimum tension

ehcoplex

It's a method for figuring out chain length, but looking at the above photos it appears about right, so I don't think a too-long chain is causing the FD shifting issue. My guess is still that the FD just needs more fiddling to get adjusted just right. It took me a couple days of riding with some tools to get the SLJ on my Pug right- it was a very fine line with the top-limit stop screw between being able to be in the big chainring & small rear cog without the FD cage rubbing and not having it over-shift and drop the chain..

SpedFast

I agree with EhcoPlex, the chain length appears good and it is a very sweet looking ride. Question, when shifting the FD from small ring to large, do you feel like you're pulling it up? I took my oldie out for a ride today and because of this thread I paid closer attention to the shifting. When going from big to small I merely flip the left lever forward without thinking much about it. It simply drops to the smaller ring. But when shifting to the large ring, I have to use pressure and pull the lever back and down until I feel the chain grab on through the pedals and my feet. (otherwise known as friction shifting) The one thing I like about this setup is I never have a problem with cross chaining. I can work through all the rear gears and be in either the big or small front ring with very little to no chain rubbing noise, unlike my other/newer bikes with 105 groupsets. They are much touchier.

ehcoplex

The OP's FD is 'high normal', so actually works in the opposite way- the FD spring pulls the cage to the big ring. The design makes a certain logical sense- shifting up from the small to the big ring takes more effort (as opposed to going from the big ring to the small where the chain really just kinda 'falls'), so having the spring want to pull to the big ring gives you some extra assistance. At least in theory. But AFAIK, Suntour was the only major component producer who made high-normal FDs, and nobody does anymore, so I assume there's a reason they didn't become the standard. Though I'll say the one on my tandem works more than fine!

Albion , how tight are your shifter levers? Because the FD is high normal, now I wonder if maybe the levers are a bit too loose and it's actually shifting up onto the big ring too fast and overshooting..... though if the limit screw is set right, that shouldn't happen...