The 60's and 70's era French bikes typically had Simplex dropouts. These have a non-threaded hole and lack the "notch" in the front of the DO which Campy DOs use as a rotation stop. The Simplex derailleurs typically used with these thread into a nut that presses into the inside of the DO. The rotation stop is provided by a tab on the derailleur near the upper pivot. You can tap a Simplex DO for modern pivot bolts and file a notch into them for the stop. Personally, I would rather find an old Simplex derailleur or use a bolt-on hanger, rather than desecrate and old French frame like that.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
-----Original Message----- From: Mark Battley [mailto:m.battley@irl.cri.nz] Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 4:23 PM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org; msherck@aol.comimagine Subject: [CR]Re: French diameter FD & Peugeot opinions solicited
>Sheldon has an excellent discussion of this on his web site. The French
tubes
>were metric gauge, i.e. the ODs were whole mm, 26.0mm for the top tube,
28.0mm for
>seat tube and down tube. Other tube sets were really English OD, 1"
(25.4mm) for
>top tube and 1 1/8" (28.6mm) for the seat tube and down tube. As to when,
the
>French used these dimensions in the 60's and perhaps much much earlier, and
my
>1986 Peugeot PZ-10 still has metric tubing even though the threading is
English.
>Why? I suppose the French, who invented the metric system, found it
logical to
>have tube ODs, and therefore clampon component IDs, in even mm rather than
in
>inches. Makes sense to me, but they lost the standards war in the
marketplace.
My 1979 Peugeot has metric diameter Vitus 172DB tubing (26.0 TT, 28.0 ST&DT), but with an English threaded BB. Stem was 22.0, but a 22.2 fitted with only very slight mods to the wedge.
A standard (Shimano) FD clamped on without any problems. When I got the bike I expected all sorts of hassles with fitting more modern components, but it turned out to be quite straightforward.
On a related subject:
>The one I have appears to be a lugged, steel-frame 10-speed built
>around (I'm guessing) 1980 or so.... I've recently read that many older
>Peugeots had an odd rear dropout which can't accept modern rear derailleur
>hardware. The question is, how do I tell whether the bike I have can take
>modern derailleur hardware?
If it is about 1980 you might be okay. Easiest way probably is to try - see if you can pick up a trashed derailleur from a bike shop and see if the thread fits. My understanding is that if it is not the same any bike shop should be able to retap it to a "modern" thread. In my case the thread is "modern", but when I got the bike the one non-standard component was the RD which had been replaced by an early Suntour Superb-pro, so it is possible that it may already have been modified.
Mark Battley.