At 11/4/2004 06:38 PM -0500, HM & SS Sachs wrote:
>There were also Suntour Perfect Tandem FW, generally marked with a heavily
>stamped "T" on the outer cone/removal ring. Back about '74, Susan and I
>had shattered two of the conventional Suntour FW on our tandem, and I sent
>them a letter with the two, and a note suggesting that I was puzzled by
>the failures at the feet of us tourists, and had become reluctant to
>recommend them to my racer friends. Actually, after shattering pawls on a
>couple, I had substituted Regina pawls, slightly ground to fit. Next
>stop: shattered body, pawls intact. As I recall things, Suntour sent me
>two of the tandem models. These still had two pawls, but they were much
>bigger.
Those Suntour Tandem FWs must have been early ones. All the ones I've seen had TANDEM stamped into the outer end of the inner body, between the remover notches. The pawls and the inner body were the only unique parts. The ramps on all outer bodies were wide enough for the oversized pawls.
You could put a 5 speed tandem inner body into a ProCompe Ultra-6 outer body to create a 6 speed Tandem FW. Then you could silver braze a 14t onto a 16t threaded or a 16t splined onto an 18t threaded to make a 7 speed with larger cogs than you could put onto a New Winner. I built a few 16-18-21-24-28-32-38 seven speeds, including one for a guy with 16-32-42-45 chainrings. He was planning to ride the length of South America, including a side trip up to Machu Pichu, with 90 pounds of gear.
The big problem with the Suntours on a tandem was removing them due to the 2 prong remover setup. After 2 people, using low gears, had snugged one up, removing them usually meant wrecking them.
Mark Stonich;
BikeSmith Design & Fabrication LLC
http://bikesmithdesign.com