zukahn1

The main thing to know with these is that they only work correctly with a reverse none standard top nuetral no tension it's on the big ring in front and shifts to the little when you pull VX serious Front DR and you need a VX series DR in the rear for them to work correctly.

eschlwc

your run-on sentence is difficult to read.

mine worked fine with cyclone m series derailleurs. the only problem i experienced was tightening them while riding as they require an allen/hex tool.

sekaijin

Cool! And I suppose you have better odds of figuring out a bigger clamp than putting your Cannondale frame on a diet.

3speedslow

I've got the symmetric Suntour shifters on my "new to me" 83 Univega Sportour. Have not needed to work on them yet but very thankful this thread is available, Thanks all !

Symmetric is set up to the Suntour ARX series.The levers are curved, very easy to use. Front D is the only one offered,the rear is the ARX GT. Both do their job very well.

I'm hoping that when the time comes I can remove the shifters from the frame and simply run some triflow or Phil W tenasious oil in there to help it resume function. I'll remember the threadlock advice as well. I'm glad these came with the D rings attached to the bolts to help me if I ever need to tighten them up on a ride.

spacemanz

Yeah, mine have the D-ring screws too, & it seems to me like those should be mandatory. Well, I flushed these ones out with Finish Line 1-step, cleaner & lubricant, but I was running out of that so I started a spray can of Liquid Wrench chain lube. That's the stuff, for lubing, & it was pretty cheap too at the auto parts store.

Shp4man

What great information! Now I understand why the SR's shifters need so little trimming, unlike the other friction shifter bikes I've had. How cool!
I've only had to adjust the tension on mine so far, it was shifting out of the big cog on the RD, but no issues after that. I'm currently running a 7 speed freewheel with a Cyclone II RD.
This picture was taken right after pulling the bike out of a barn.

3speedslow

Thanks for the tip ! Cheap but effective is my word for the shop.

Had a nice ride today before it rained with the bike. Still trying to decide the fit aspects of the saddle and stem. Shifting almost seems like it is an index system, it's that precise and crisp ! Still digging the top shift syle too !

oberthecat

Here is a picture of the shifters on my 1985 AD Puch Maxima 15. These shifters work in the manner described. The bikes FD and RD are Suntour ARXs with the rear having a fairly long cage. The bike had a five speed free wheel when new but at some point it was replaced with a 6 speed. The crank is a three speed half step set up. It all worked very well.

spacemanz

I got these cleaned up pretty decent now, at least from a short distance. On the FD, I'm pretty sure the braze-on one was a very early M II, but got branded as a regular Cyclone. Notice the pivot plate is shorter, besides having that distinctive cut-out.

jesseahouser

Thanks to miamijim for the excellent assembly instructions and photos. And thanks also to WNG and Banzai for describing how to set up the shifters.

As others have mentioned, my shifters were also missing the nylon washer on the left side. I measured, did a bit of searching, and found a nylon washer (made in Twin Falls, Idaho) that fits. Note that you will need to cut a small notch to match the shift lever. The left lever will still seem slightly loose prior to installing cables, although less so than without the nylon washer. I've found that once the cables are installed and set up, the play in the lever is insignificant.

Seastrom Manufacturing
Part Number: 5610-644-62
ID: 0.454 in
OD: 0.625 in
T: 0.062 in
Product Details

As it turns out, Seastrom also makes flat metal washers like the very thin ones used on this shifter. If you are missing one of those, you might be able to find one in their product portfolio that would work.

Pars 

Thanks for the info. I might need some thin washers for another project, and wondered where to find them at. Not sure if McMaster-Carr carries stuff like this as well or not.

Also, not sure if Beech333 (post 35?) ever scanned his SunTour small parts catalog or not. I could use a scan of the later Cyclone Mk. II rear derailleur. The cage pivot bolt and nut are different than the scans from Yellow Jersey, etc., and have a slot in them with a "T" shaped piece of metal that wedges in and is tightened by the nut. Without it, the nut will not tighten. One of mine was missing that and although I made one which works OK, finding an actual one for it would be nice.

Optimus2357

This thread is amazing! I'm overhauling a 1985 Schwinn Le Tour, and decided to disassemble the symmetric shifters without really thinking it through... a couple twists of a screwdriver and it just dissolved into a pile of little metal pieces. Thanks to miamijim and everyone else who contributed to this thread, I was able to get it all back together!

seedsbelize 

And now it's nearly October. I too am missing the nylon washer. And the mounting bolt. I won't be taking mine apart for cleaning. I came here trying to find out why the left lever is always loose. thanks to all contributors.

willpom

Thanks miamijim for the diagram. Mine too slip a lot and I was going to take apart and clean but think I'll just go the thread lock route as apart from regularly tightening they work fine with my Cyclone MKII GT set up on a 1984 Claud Butler Sierra running a custom drive train - at the moment 42/24 front and 9spd 11-32 rear - kicks ass on a hilly 400km Audax!

As to the infallible Sheldon, shortly after getting these shifters and trying them out I actually emailed John Allen at Harris Cyclery explaining how I thought Sheldon's 'flaw' was flawed, shortly after this was added "Sheldon regarded the design as flawed, but opinions differ -- John Allen"
https://sheldonbrown.com/suntour.html

therover

thank you, much frustration saved

Bestedreng

The pics seems to have disappeared, or is it just me? Can anyone repost them? It would be of great help!

AustinFitz

You can thank Photobucket for the loss of the photos. The only thing I have saved is this exploded view of the Symmetric shifters. I found it while looking for info on rebuilding mine. Hope it helps!

dddd

I remember about 25 years ago, thinking that I was clever in having decided to unbolt the whole thing and then simply apply a fat drop of regular old motor oil to the innards, which gave great and lasting results as far as my 710's shift action went.
Sure am glad that it didn't occur to me at that time to start taking the thing apart, which is pretty much de-rigueur these days for most ordinary DT shift levers, if only to get lube to the pivots and washers.
Mine have the 4mm Allen socket tension bolts, which retain adjustment over long periods of use and non-use.
Older DT levers (even indexed, Synchro and Retrofriction levers) respond magically to the motor oil, which I keep in a Tri-Flo bottle (with applicator capillary tube), diluted with perhaps 10% mineral spirits for faster penetration on colder days.

In the old days, folks used the "Cycle Oil" for literally every moving part of the bikes, and the bikes turn up today well-preserved because of it.

Bestedreng

Thank´s a lot! This really helps. Maybe I´ll take and post some ptohots as I assemble my shifters.

AustinFitz

Please do! I still haven't taken mine apart yet. I just flushed them out with generous amounts of oil and that seemed to work nicely, but I do want to eventually disassemble them and clean them better.

ryansu

I seem to recall reading this thread before so when I was working on recently acquired 84 Novara Randonee I chickened out and merely removed the left hand screw flushed the shifters liberally with WD 40 let them dry and then dribbled in 3 in 1 oil. Now that I have found the exploded diagram above I might over haul them down the road

seedsbelize 

I've found the exact opposite to be true. Yes, a reply six years after the original post. The thread appeared just today, and I read back through it.

Mr. Luigi

Preface...if I had read this thread BEFORE doing the following, I probably would NOT have touched the shifter and let sleeping dogs lie.

I disassembled my Syntour Symmetric (version with the "smooth" shifter handles). Cleaned and greased things and put back all the bits and pieces in what I hoped was the correct order and orientation. I have noticed that after the "refresh" the right shifter does NOT stay tight. It loosens over time causing the rear deraillier to shift to smaller sprockets on its own. The only solution is to get out a 5mm Allen key and retighten the bolt. That solves the problem for a while.

I also noticed that when I move the LEFT shifter, the 5mm Allen bolt does NOT rotate. But when I move the RIGHT shift lever the 5mm Allen bolt moves with the lever. I suspect the behavior of the right lever/Allen bolt is why it loosens over time. Is this normal? Or could I have screwed up reassembling things? Maybe the different behavior of the left and right 5mm Allen bolts is a consequence of the need for the shifter to "auto-adjust" the left/front derailleur as you change rear gears. But I'm not sure.

If it is normal for the right shifter to loosen over time, does anyone have a solution? I thought about taking off the right 5mm Allen bolt on the right side. Clean it up. Dab some blue Loctight on the threads, let it dry, and then reattach the bolt to the shifter in the hope that the increased friction in the threads would prevent the 5mm bolt from loosening.

Thanks in advance for any help the community may be able to offer!

P.S. I am glad I can do my part to make this the thread that never dies!

willpom

Threadlock! Not the stupidly tough locking one but one you can adjust.

Mr. Luigi

Thanks for confirming my impressions about using Locktite. My initial reply to you was rejected because it had a URL to the product I use on my bikes. So, in English only, I use the blue Locktite 243 (an newer version of the old stand-by blue Locktite 242). It comes in a red plastic container, but it's a blue fluid and meant for medium duty jobs where you would want to someday disassemble the parts. Cheers, Luigi