I recently stumbled upon a 1987 Nishiki Rally bike the previous owner did a restomod on. It’s got mainly L-Twoo parts now, which from what I’ve found aren’t the best quality.
I also have an old aluminum Cannondale that’s been sitting around for a while with Shimano 600 parts. Both have two chainrings and eight gears on the rear cassettes, but I’m wondering if it’d be possible or worth it, if so, to put the Shimano parts on the Nishiki. I’m attaching specific pictures of the brake calipers, rear cassettes, chainrings, and wheels (both bikes have Shimano wheels, but I’m wondering if you’d rate one kind as better than the other).
I’m especially unsure about the derailleurs, though I’m attaching close ups of those too. The Nishiki has brifters now but the Cannondale still has its downtube shifters. My understanding is friction derailleurs won’t work with indexed brifters, right?
Tl;dr: is it possible to replace modern L-Twoo components with vintage Shimano 600? If so, would you do it or leave the modern parts on?
Any thoughts are appreciated!
by Imaginary-Winter994
8 Comments
That Shimano 600 SIS rear derailleur is an early, nice quality 6-speed derailleur. I bet you if you used the downtube shifters the right one would switch back to 6-speed indexed shifting by twisting the knob to “SIS” mode, so you’re really looking at a mishmash of parts here that would require buying even more parts to get a complete, original groupset together (or buying wheels with old school 6-speed 126mm Shimano 600 hubs and a 6-speed freewheel). Also I see one bike has a compact crank set (probably 50 & 34 teeth) which I prefer for daily use when there’s any hills, while the other has a racing crank set. If I were you I would pick and choose the parts you like best based on your intended use rather than trying to get all the parts a consistent brand/model.
Why would you?
The photos of the two wheelsets are not good/thorough enough to make a decision which is better. Also key factors that can not be easily discerned from photos are hub spacing (126mm vs 130mm), whether they spin round and true, and whether they have damage (bearing/race, rim).
I’m counting gears on rear clusters and one is 7-speed, the other is 8-speed btw
Issues are:
Dropout distance. (8 speed is probably the same, assuming they were originally 8 speed.)
Seat tube and head tube diameter, for the derailleur and headset. The new front derailleur is clamp on, the old one is “braze on”, but you can get a clamp for it.
The old derailleur is made for indexing “SIS”. Indexing started with 6 speed. The downtube shifters are probably indexed. You can probably look it up on the Shimano site to see what shifters are compatible. See the links here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/xbiking/wiki/toolshed/](https://www.reddit.com/r/xbiking/wiki/toolshed/)
L-Twoo brifters may use a different pull ratio than Shimano, IDK. You can just try it to see what happens. Make sure you set the high/low limit screws to avoid a disaster.
Crank should be no issue, but you may have to exchange bottom brackets on account of spindle length.
Does the Cannondale not fit you? The claw RD adapter tells me the nishiki isn’t a great frame to start with
What you’re asking will maybe work. The 600 is a six-speed derailleur. Sometimes they will have enough throw to change 8-10 speeds but not always. Your shifter, cablMost of the time you 8-10 is a wider group of cogs compared to 6 speed. The front derailleur will need an adapter clamp to run the 600 on the clamp front derailleur bike. Brakes… the dual-pivot brakes will stop better than the single-pivot brakes even though the no-name brakes aren’t the highest quality. Quality brake calipers on eBay are plentiful and inexpensive. I believe L-twoo is Shimano-compatible.
Good luck. Worth a try.
Do you have access to a bike co-op in your area? Are there swap meets? A bike Co-op would have all the parts for very reasonable prices. You could even spruce up the Cannondale and see if you can ride it or sell it.
If these components all work, why not wait? You can probably get a matching set for a good deal used through FB / CL / Ebay
[https://www.ebay.com/itm/335990569972?_skw=exage+600+group&itmmeta=01JX7WM67XW51J3J6QVQTP5NEE&hash=item4e3a993bf4:g:HLoAAOSwyn9oPMTN&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1dxyKA2j9X0Zf%2F39FReDxP76U5qugXhsYXcFFHqXYjcNlzYvz6eWhRfgm1AoKEjoCqNHExmbnPPw13jS%2FzYE5xSniof0PLab6k2wLEdSdI8wN4z2sNhlDIlPWN%2BowB6ZC4tIAYarr0QtjHaz4IX7x9g08u110xZLZPsDypBxmZvTRUYtS9X18IwjE3KNkG3dmnbH8o5R%2BAKASsL7SfmofRrnfjS6tmtVs9G7wbma0sGVHO0RtWzv38IOo3cOpVB5sZUrdPA7KkqIzxj8JaswHqHTHU7vqzGlA4AOelk8qzHPw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4bk0PzpZQ](https://www.ebay.com/itm/335990569972?_skw=exage+600+group&itmmeta=01JX7WM67XW51J3J6QVQTP5NEE&hash=item4e3a993bf4:g:HLoAAOSwyn9oPMTN&itmprp=enc%3AAQAKAAAA8FkggFvd1GGDu0w3yXCmi1dxyKA2j9X0Zf%2F39FReDxP76U5qugXhsYXcFFHqXYjcNlzYvz6eWhRfgm1AoKEjoCqNHExmbnPPw13jS%2FzYE5xSniof0PLab6k2wLEdSdI8wN4z2sNhlDIlPWN%2BowB6ZC4tIAYarr0QtjHaz4IX7x9g08u110xZLZPsDypBxmZvTRUYtS9X18IwjE3KNkG3dmnbH8o5R%2BAKASsL7SfmofRrnfjS6tmtVs9G7wbma0sGVHO0RtWzv38IOo3cOpVB5sZUrdPA7KkqIzxj8JaswHqHTHU7vqzGlA4AOelk8qzHPw%3D%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR4bk0PzpZQ)