OT: looking for parts for a 7-speed Shimano mountain derailleur

[Nathan Dushman]

While towing my son to his tennis class this week, the guide pulley on my rear derailleur fell off. It's a 7-speed Shimano STX SGS rear derailleur from around 1996. Anyone happen to have a similar derailleur from which I could steal the guide pulley and bolt, or use to replace the entire unit? I found a similar pulley at a local bike shop for $3 which will probably work; the part I'm having trouble finding is the bolt to go through it since newer ones are shorter.

I'd never had this sort of failure before. The shifting in the rear got really bad, I couldn't get to the lowest gear despite adjusting the cable tension. It didn't occur to me to stop and check the bolt for the guide pulley. On this derailleur the bolts for both pulleys are on the same side, where most newer ones I've seen have the bolts on opposite sides (I assume so that chain motion will tend to tighten them), so perhaps that explains how this one got loose.

[Jason Thorpe]

> On Nov 6, 2021, at 4:01 PM, Nathan Dushman <nathan...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> While towing my son to his tennis class this week, the guide pulley on my rear derailleur fell off. It's a 7-speed Shimano STX SGS rear derailleur from around 1996. Anyone happen to have a similar derailleur from which I could steal the guide pulley and bolt, or use to replace the entire unit? I found a similar pulley at a local bike shop for $3 which will probably work; the part I'm having trouble finding is the bolt to go through it since newer ones are shorter.

I'm pretty sure I have an Ultegra 9-speed medium cage derailleur that might have parts that'll work.

-- thorpej

[Nathan Dushman]

Thanks! I'll give it a try, but what I've read is that the 6/7 speed cages are a bit wider than the 8+ ones and need a slightly longer bolt.

[Dan Yang (Millbrae lurker)]

I have a spare 7 speed Shimano derailleur in my parts bin.

Dan