pcb 

I wish it were that simple, wish we could have just blamed dealers, but that was not the case. Despite some individuals having few problems with Accushift, it performed badly in the marketplace, and hastened Suntour's death. Keep in mind that what happens in your home shop is a different scenario that what happens when Nishiki specs 60k bikes with Edge 4050, and a dealer that sells over 1k bikes/yr has only 30min for his mechanic to completely build/adjust a bike and get it up on the floor.

There are some hard truths regarding Accushift:

1. Shimano's SIS was superior from the get-go: easier to setup, held adjustment better/longer, and was much less sensitive to chain/cable/casing/frame spec
2. Shimano's patents forced Suntour to design an indexing system that had less margin for error, and was very dependent on 100% correct frame/drivetrain spec
3. Suntour was unable to ensure their OE customers equipped bikes with 100% correct spec, and most of those bikes performed unacceptably
4. Even with 100% Accushift-correct spec, SIS worked better that Accushift at the dealer level: quicker to build/adjust, fewer customers unhappy with shifting performance
5. Suntour couldn't even control correct spec on their own freewheels---at one point we had to send Go/No-Go gauges and microspacers so dealers could respace freewheels
6. Suntour's cross-compatibility claims that all component groups could be covered with one shifter was false: there were 3 different geometries that needed 3 different shifters for acceptable performance; that generally meant low-/mid-level component performance was even worse
7. Improvements in chains, freewheel cog profiles and shifting geometries were too little, too late---OE stopped spec'ing Suntour because dealers stopped buying Suntour-equipped bikes

You could try to make the argument that dealers weren't following directions, but even when they did, Accushift didn't perform as well as Shimano. By the time that gap had lessened, it was too late.

T-Mar

The subject catalogue is from 1990. Command Shifters were only compatible with 2nd generation Accushift, which had been introduced in 1989. However, in 1990, Superbe Pro and Sprint were still 1st generation Accushift and therefore incompatible with Command Shifters. Superbe Pro would get the upgrade for 1991, at which time SL replaced Sprint. They should both be compatible with Commnad Shifters, which in 1991 were spec'd as a option and not shown with any particular group.


I'm assuming the the delay in upgrading Superbe Pro and Sprint/SL was due to Sun Tour's limited resources. They were likely allocating their design resources to where the volume (and money) was to be made, which at the time would be ATB groups and entry to lower mid-range road groups.While Superbe pro and Sprint were prestige groups, they didn't sell a lot and bring in a lot of profit, so had little impact on the bottom line. For a company which had just be given an devastating economic body blow by Shimano, getting back onto their feet and generating cash flow was probably more important than keeping their premiere road groups current.

Cycle Tourist

Lots of smack about Suntour accushift. I was a poor independent racer and bought some accushift DT levers for my Shimano twist-tooth freewheel. I installed and tuned them without changing the chain or non-indexing derailleur. They worked perfectly all season without adjustment on my Cannondale. I've heard that Shimano was superior but fail to understand how better than perfect is superior. It's only one isolated example I know but it worked just fine for me and I imagine any vintage bikes around today with indexing equipment that didn't work has already been upgraded so this is probably a moot point.

crank_addict

Therein is the problem, a dealer whom likely seemed overwhelmed by the demand or either squeezed the production / payroll and possibility of shoddy setup. Of course there's makers and product that may be easier or quicker to setup, adjust but temperament and limits to what the representing agency is can make or break the manufacturer / supplier.

During that era, family business was selling and servicing fine orange colored tractors from Japan. First representing dealer in a particular State. It took more than just uncrating, removing cosmoline and bolting on wheels. We took the care and time to properly setup and deliver to the customer including extensive time to instruct the new owner. Other dealers failed in proper setup and or didn't explain the features / benefits to their customer. We later earned many customers formerly from those competing dealers. In a way it was too bad in how some customers from other dealers now had a negative feeling to the product.

dddd

I think you got somewhat lucky with your combination, likely it was 6-speed, and also likely that the chain was a good match for the Shimano Uniglide freewheel. What particular derailer did you use???
Also, give yourself some credit for getting it adjusted properly!

6s Accushift tended to be a lot more robust than 7s Accushift (which suffered from a narrowed asymmetrical cog spacing and deliberately generous "overshift" movement (built into the shift lever by adding free-play between the lever/spool and the outer hub of the shift lever mechanism).
As I mentioned earlier, a narrower 9s chain remedies the excess of over-shift movement with the 7s levers, while the 6s Accushift also benefits greatly from a narrower, fully-modern 7-8s chain of the type that became available around 1988 ("Uniglide Narrow").

I am not aware that there were ever two versions of Accushift 7s lever indexing movement, though I do remember fiddling with multi-mode levers that could ostensibly adjust to several different formats. So I assume that all 7s Accushift levers were "second generation", and that Command levers (both 7s versions) worked properly with ALL 7s Accushift derailers and freewheels.
Perhaps I am wrong and there were some early/rare 7s levers intended for equally early/rare 7s derailers(?).
I know that there were obscure early Campagnolo indexing setups that are exceedingly rare today and which are said to have worked very poorly, but I never knew that Suntour had any such skeletons in their closet. Oh, and at least my Xenon, Athena and Chorus Synchro systems work really well with modern chain.

One more datapoint is that I used 7s Command levers early on with a Pro-Compe 14-26t Ultra-6 freewheel and found that it worked and indexed reasonably well using DID Super-Lanner chain and perhaps even with my 1985 Cyclone friction derailer since I don't remember ever changing it.
I also tried a similar setup using a Sachs/Maillard 7s freewheel, but which was a chain-skating disaster, lol.

pcb 

But here's the thing---the bike dealer carried multiple brands, and they needed to build bikes fast to be profitable, and they needed customers to be happy with their new bikes, and not be coming back often with shifting problems. The Centurion Ironman, with Shimano 600, built up in 30 minutes, shifted great in the stand, the customer loved it, the bike didn't come back till the 100mi check, and everything was good. Happy customer, happy dealer. The Cannondale, with Suntour Sprint 9000, built in 45min, with an extra 15min spent tweaking the shifting. It didn't shift as well in the stand, the customer wasn't thrilled with the shifting performance, and came back 3 or 4 times before the 100mi check to have the shifting tweaked.

Cannondale subbed chains and cables, and their rear dropout drop dimension had no +/- spec. Each individual rear-end builder just ground the slots till they "looked right." Didn't bother the Shimano-equipped bikes, but caused havoc with Accushift. It wasn't shoddy assembly/adjustment by the dealer, it was a poorly-designed, intolerant shifting system hampered by incorrect spec.

How was it in the dealer's best interest to keep ordering and selling the Sprint-equipped Cannondale, spending extra time trying to troubleshoot a poorly-designed system, when the Centurion built faster, shifted better, and made the customer happier? No benefit for the dealer, no benefit for the buyer.

In your tractor example, the tractors worked well when they were assembled properly, and the end user was coached to operate it properly. If you want to compare your tractors to what happened in the bicycle biz, imagine that after all the extra time you took assembling the Japanese tractor, it didn't work as well as the John Deere or whatever, that just needed to be uncrated, cleaned and have the wheels bolted on. If you also carried John Deere, why would you keep ordering/selling the inferior tractors?

One of the Suntour engineers told West Coast Cycle's sales rep that a Taiwanese KMC chain would work OK on their bikes. They bought, I can't remember for sure any more, 10,000 derailleur/shifter sets? 15k? For just one Nishiki model, first shipment, maybe 3040 level? And they shifted like crap. Since we approved the chain, Nishiki insisted we go to their warehouses and swap out the chains before they'd ship them to dealers. They were tired of asking their dealers to clean up our problems. We had just introduced the newer Alpha freewheels, which Nishiki didn't buy because they cost more, and we told them the older freewheels would shift OK, even with a KMC chain. Since we knew the Alpha freewheels would shift better, Japan figured we should swap out the freewheel the same time we swapped out the chain. They air-shipped out pallets of freewheels and chains, and sent 3 or 4 staffers to do the bikes in Los Angeles and Chicago. We at Suntour USA were blessed with reworking the bikes in WCC's NJ warehouse, maybe only 2-3k?

So imagine spending 2-3 days in a warehouse doing this: use needle-nose pliers to cleanly pull out the staples from the top of the box, try to carefully separate the glued top flaps without tearing the cardboard to shreds, unbox the new bike, cut the chain, use a 15mm wrench to pull the nut-mount rear wheel, pull the freewheel, reinstall the rear wheel, making sure it's straight and well-aligned, install the new chain, carefully pack it all back so it still looks all nice and new, then restaple the box top. Box the old chain and freewheel, because we can probably sell them to J&B, for the South American market, for pennies on the dollar. J&B would buy just about anything, for pennies on the dollar. Repeat 2,000 times.

Japan welded long breaker bars to a bunch of freewheel removers so we could just kick the freewheels loose. Mine started bending near the end of the 2nd day. It was a smart idea, though, 'cause your arm would get pretty tired/sore removing 500+ freewheels. No way you'd have time to use a bench vise. They also sent us some giant chain cutters, big pin tools you could just squeeze to pop the pin out. Can't remember if we used the same tool to install the new chain.

It was a freaking nightmare. Japan probably spent more on the replacement chains/freewheels and air shipment fees than they made on WCC's original purchase order. Like I said, I wish we could've just blamed the dealers, but that ain't what happened.

Shimano never had to send staff to their customers' warehouses to rework bikes that didn't shift well. We did.

canklecat

@pcb: Wow, thanks for that background story. Sounds like a mess.

I can understand how that could have been a financial disaster. For me, getting the Suntour GPX group to work satisfactorily on my Ironman was only a moderately annoying challenge. A SunRace freewheel and KMC chain seemed to resolve the minor shifting quirks. But I expected a few challenges with a 30 year old bike. I can only imagine the customer service challenges 30 years ago with new bikes and higher expectations.

Cycle Tourist

Your right about the 6 speed. There were no other choices when I raced but let's get to the bottom of the 7 speed statement you made. I've seen tons of Shimano and Suntour 7 spd freewheels and they all look the same. They all have equal spacing of 5mm. The 6's had 5.5 and the 7's had 5.0. What is this unequally spaced 7speed freewheel of which you speak? I'm not saying it doesn't exist. It's only I've never seen one. I'm a big one on slapping a 7speed freewheel where once resided a 6 and finding some kind of 7 speed clicker to mount to the DT or barends. Swear I'd even stick a thumb clicker if I could make 'em fit a drop bar. Anyway what have I missed? Did Suntour once have a 7 spd shifter for a oddly spaced freewheel. If they did, I can easily see it becoming rapidly extinct!
Thanks for the compliment on my tuning skills, second only to my wheel building expertise. 😉
Truth be told however, after the cables have streached a bit and the housings seated themselves over a couple of hard training rides, it becomes a heck of a lot easier to set everything up exactly right.
It's a little like people that don't crank their freewheels tight when changing because, "your pedaling will tighten them". Sure, if you don't mind having to readjust your RD. OK, I know it usually doesn't need adjustment but it's the principal, damn it.😁...I do tend to ramble.

dddd

The Suntour 7s freewheels (all made prior to 1994) have visibly-narrower center-to-center cog spacing between the largest three cogs, so are asymmetrically spaced.

Shimano's 7s freewheels and cassettes (all of them) are also asymmetrically spaced, but only the 2-3 spacer (between 2nd and 3rd-smallest cogs) is a thicker 3.3mm instead of the 3.1mm of the rest of the spacers.

All modern 7s freewheels and cassettes use Shimano's mostly-symmetrical spacing, both because it has become standard and because it provides more-robust shifting across the range as the bike's cabling deteriorates, or if a very low-end sort of derailer is used.

The "5.0mm" spacing that is sometimes referenced with regard to 7s and 8s freewheels/cassettes is only an approximation.

Suntour did offer Shimano-spaced 7s freewheels during their last year of US operations, rare to find and labeled as "Plug-'n-Play". I believe that these were not Japanese-made, and had featured tooth profiles.

The featured and thinned sprocket teeth of modern freewheels, along with today's narrower chains, allow these current freewheels to work better with old Suntour 7s parts in many cases than older freewheels having Shimano spacing, but shifting is still more inconsistent than if the correct parts are used. A floating pulley can offer quieter running when the centering is a little off, but it won't correct for shifting response inconsistencies the way that featured cog teeth somewhat can.

Cycle Tourist

Well... Interesting.. Man, I've been placing 7 speed freewheels side by side and seeing no difference for quite awhile. It does explain changing chains and "fixing" the occasional imperfect shifting. I've been thinking that the newer chains just had less lateral movement and therefore shifted better. Live and learn.
Bought a cheap Shwinn Super Le Tour outfitted with Suntour cyclone derailleurs from '77. What a beautiful RD. Reminds me of Campy's Super Record RD. What a piece of art! After cleaning it up I showed the wife how beautiful it was. She just stared sceptically at my obvious insanity and nodded.🙄