Parts availability for 70s bicycles

[68avenger5]

I ride a mid 70s Huffy 10 speed and will be needing some parts,just wondering if the local bicycle shops could even get anything for me and since I have no parts catalogs so no part numbers to help find what I need. I was planning on retiring it when the speedometer turns back to all zeros (around 3800 miles) so I will need to ride it for awhile.

 

[J-wagon]

Pretty sure parts for usual worn down should be readily available, tires/tubes (27") brake pads, chain, bearings, cables housing, etc

 

[williebill]

Part numbers on that bike won't matter. If you need specific stuff like the original brake levers, or what could be plastic shifters, I doubt you can find exact matching parts. When those bikes were new, if they got fixed, it wasn't ever with original parts, but usually better, more durable ones. We had many of them in my shop for repair back then, and replacing bad parts with exact replacements was never done. I know this thread is a few days old, but I'm just catching up on my reading tonight. Good luck.

 

[partsguy]

Most 70’s 10 Speeds have common parts across hundreds if not thousands of different models. Today, you just have modern equivalents available, but they will fit.

The biggest difference, is that most shifting back then was friction-based, not indexed. So, replacing a shifter or a derailleur may resort you to eBay. Everything else though is readily available.

 

[Fritz Katzenjammer]

I fixed up a pair of seventies ten speeds last summer. All the bits were readily available with the exception of a quill seatpost. All of the wearing components for these bikes are still pretty common, find an older shop which has been around long enough and you should even be able to get some new old stock off their dusty shelves cheap.

 

[williebill]

Didn't mean to imply that the old Huffy couldn't be fixed. Bikes of that vintage still come into my shop, maybe cause this shop is 50 years old. My point was, no offense, that many of the exact original parts found on Huffys were of such low quality back in the day that no shops used them. We fixed those bikes using better, non original pieces. A flimsy brand X derailleur was replaced with a basic Suntour or Shimano. Replacement pedals are another example. So are new wheels with more durable hubs, and stronger rims than the original. I would never sell those black plastic stem shifters that were often broken on Huffys and Murrays, but I'd fix them with a set of alloy Suntour shifters. We never ordered the parts that we knew were unreliable. We'd try to make those bikes better. In the 70s and 80s a bunch of European 10 speeds with broken Simplex derailleurs rolled out of here with Japanese replacements. I still have a lot of NOS Simplex rear derailleur parts I inherited when I bought the shop in '76. I still have them because we never used them in the shop, we made the bikes better if we could. Original stamped steel sidepull brakes that wouldn't adjust properly, and were weak anyway were replaced with better, stronger Weinmanns or Dia-Compe