Forewarning: this has become a very long post. I have included a suggested alternative to servicing this derailleur in the last paragraph. Good luck

Hi all, just wanted to make a post to caution other owners of this derailleur. I had bought an old touring bike with this derailleur, and what with the nature of touring, and potentially being stuck in the middle of nowhere… I decided to try overhauling it, as the idea of forty-year-old grease wasn't appealing to me. I had read that they were somewhat fragile, but also read that when they worked, they worked really well, so I figured I'd give it a try.

The derailleur came apart easily enough; there's a YouTube video that guides viewers through the process of assembly and disassembly, although it doesn't really show the difficulty involved in getting it back together…

So yeah, getting the main parallelogram back together really sucked. There's this one piece that you have to fight against spring tension with, and then try to keep it from falling out while inserting the B-knuckle. Getting that piece in is half the battle, but then getting the whole parallelogram back together is a huge struggle in itself. It took me hours to get the thing back together, and because it takes a fair bit of hand strength, I had to call it quits and try again the next day- a couple of times. But finally, after a ton of struggle, and unfortunately having the cool "Superbe Tech" script rub off, I managed to get the thing back together.

I slapped it on my bike yesterday in anticipation of a short shakedown tour this weekend, started adjusting limits…. and noticed some significant and concerning play in it. So I removed the derailleur, and tried to snug up the bolts that hold it together. First one… a little force… nice and tight. Second one… a little force… SNAP. Derailleur busted, right before this tour I've been anticipating.

Fortunately, I had bought an old Motobecane Grand Jubilé from the cooperative I've been working on this bike at, and it's one of the later 70's bikes that came with A Suntour Cyclone GT RD. This is a derailleur Ive heard goodb things about, and is, in my opinion, a very attractive derailleur. It's one of the reasons I bought the Motobecane. A bit of cleaning up, and I was able to swap it in, and it seems to work well.

Final note for Superbe Tech owners:

You can disassemble and service the jockey wheels, that is a good idea, but I cannot advise disassembly of the parallelogram. Fortunately, there's a much easier option! The bolt that holds the cable, as well as the limit screws, both provide small access ports into the derailleur. If I were to rewind time and do it again, I would simply remove the cable clamp bolt, spray in a degrease (one that doesn't eat aluminum,) remove a limit screw for airflow, and allow to drain. Maybe do this a couple times too really purge the thing of all the gunk in there. Allow ample time to drain and dry, and then stick the nozzle of a grease gun or straw of an aerosol grease into the cable clamp hole, fill that sucker up with grease, reinstall cable clamp and limit bolt, and call it a day.