I have a Suntour Accushift Alpha-2000 derailer and six-speed indexed shifter on one of my bikes. Looks like the derailer pulleys are dying, and I'm wondering if I can replace the derailer (or just the pulleys?) with something Shimano while keeping the shifter. Is this possible without switching to friction mode?

You can replace the pulleys but SunTour pulleys have a different shaft diameter from Shimano. Suntour pulleys are getting a bit harder to find but still lots out there. You can always combine manufacturers components & run the shifters in friction mode, I'm running Shimano 10 speed with SunTour accushift on one of my bikes now. Don

You can buy a new Suntour Accushift derailleur and shifters on ebay for uder $25.

Sadly, Ebay is not an option for me since most sellers don't ship to Russia or the delivery is two times the price of the item

This is very interesting. It seems you are saying that your only option is a local (Russian) source. Is that a correct statement? I'm guessing since Russia is now a "free" country, and you have McDonalds hamburgers, shipping bicycle parts is not impossible. I can visualize getting you the parts you need, but you need to convince me you are truly a vintage and classic bicycle owner in Russsia, who needs help getting your bike back on the road, and you are financially destitute. Would you be willing to share your life's circumstance?

Cheers

Not exactly. I do have several ways to get parts from abroad, but all of them are either too expensive or take too much time in this case.
I just wanted to know if there's a quick fix possible by using commonplace Shimano parts - I'm not particularly concerned about the authencity of parts on that bike, I just like the Accushift shifter.

We have McDonalds since 1989, but like that means anything. Some of the online shops outright refuse to deal with credit cards issued by Russian banks due to fear of fraud

Thanks for the offer, but it's really not worth the hassle. The bike in question is a cheap and rather rusty citybike I use for commuting, that hardly qualifies as true "classic and vintage" stuff even if it's from 1980
Although I'd love to own and restore some good vintage bikes, I just don't have the necessary space to store them.

This unwieldy link (https://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a) is to a Google-cached copy of a page that no longer exists. It discusses suntour/shimano compatibility; what works and what doesn't. The link specifies my firefox browser, so if it doesn't work for you search Google for suntour compatibility radzeug and click on the cached link.

Paul

Thanks, saved that for future reference. It doesn't have anything about 6-speed Suntour stuff though, but nevertheless I am now 99% positive that I will need dirty tricks to make my shifter work in index mode with a different-brand derailer.

Since the SunTour pulleys have a larger diameter hole, you could drill out some shimano pulleys to fit & use the SunTour metal parts you already have. Not an elegant solution but it should work. Crude but effective gets your bike back on the road. Don

No-name sealed aluminum pulleys I've bought on ebay (can probably be found locally, though, since they're basically generic) are suntour-sized, the hole that is, with shims to fit shimano derailleurs. That's an option. You could swap pulleys with any old suntour derailleur, like you may be able to find a vg (vt?) derailleur for nothing. It won't have the top pulley float but that's no big deal.

As far as indexing goes with a new derailleur, you're basically out of luck unless you find more-or-less the same derailleur. I have a six speed, XCD6000 drivetrain and basically my shifters are only compatible with the XCD6000 derailleur and the 6 speed "accushift" freewheel. Suntour made "regular" and "ultra" 6 speed freewheels, which are much more common, but my derailleur and shifters will only mate with the "accu****" 6 speed freewheel (luckily I have 2).

But I think- I could be completely wrong though- I think most of Suntour's 6 speed indexing systems were made to work with the ultra freewheels and just a few lines were made to work with the "accushift" freewheel.

So, how to find out which you have: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-spacing.html

Scroll down to find the cribsheet on cassette/freewheel spacing. If you measure and find out you have an "ultra" freewheel then you're in luck. I believe you would be able to use any Suntour 6 speed indexing, or possibly even 6 speed non-indexing (provided it was designed for the ultra freewheel) derailleur and it would index with your current shifter. If you have the "accushift" freewheel then only a 6 speed accushift rear derailleur will work.

Long story short- finding some pulleys would be the easiest thing to do.

I could be wrong on some of this though, you might want to ask this question in the mechanics forum.

I don't think this would work. He would have to drill out and use the shimano plates as well. If he tried this the only thing he could use suntour would be the metal bushings, the suntour side plates wouldn't fit into the groove on the shimano wheels and probably wouldn't let the wheels turn, so he'd have to use the shimano side plates. But I think suntour wheels are generally wider than shimano so the bushings probably wouldn't mate properly in any way. The best I think he'd end up with is a shimano wheel without side plates spinning on a suntour bushing, and that would be a pretty flippity-floppity setup.

The suggestion to get pulleys from another SunTour derailleur may be the best bet, I've been told they are all the same size. Any one have any other solutions that allow for the O.P.'s location in Russia?

Oh, I entirely forgot about the freewheel issue. Actually, I never had the original freewheel. I use a 5-speed Shimano freewheel, and indexing is fine - maybe the Alpha-2000 was even intended to be used with regular freewheels since it was bottom-of-the-line back in 1989.

So you're able to index over 5 gears? You should still measure the freewheel, since it indexes with it the spacing will be close to what it's supposed to be.

The freewheel is a very common Shimano unit (MF-TZ30 or something like that) with a 5.3mm spacing. So the derailer intended for Ultra sprockets should undershift by about 1.5 mm in 5th gear, and derailer for Accushift sprockets should overshift by about 1 mm, if Sheldon Brown's data is correct. I'm going to try measuring it tomorrow.