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Who made a high-quality front derailleur to fit a 1" seat tube?

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bloo

I live for the CABE
The title sums it up. What front Derailleur options exist for a 25.4mm/1" seat tube? I am not having a lot of luck on Ebay.

I am putting together a duplicate of a bike I had in the 80s (I'll post a thread about it when I get around to taking a picture of the pile of parts). I used a Huret back then to replace the lousy original, though I don't remember what model that Huret was, and I suspect most of them are for a French seat tube or larger. Ebay sellers don't usually include the tube size.

A Suntour Cyclone II with the endless clamp looks sort of promising, but as near as I can tell those have no housing stop, and I would really prefer a housing stop because I don't want to run the cable under the bottom bracket.

Chainwheels will be 40/34. What are my options? Also, is there anything modern?
 
Decent quality but so-so cachet, probably outside your parameters but - Suntour Spirt FD's came in 28.6 and 25.4 That's the only one that comes to mind off the bat. Seems to be no shortage of those on the 'bay.
 
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One thing to be aware of with the Suntour Spirt/Compe-V/SL family of front mechs is that they operate "backwards" from all others. They are referred to in the trade as being "top normal." This may take a bit of getting familiar with. The design definitely has numerous adherents. No wish to denigrate it.

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Huret produced quite a number of models for 25.4mm seat tube.

Here is the Club II model as shown on a manufacturer's catalogue page of 1978:

1277182

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All of the Shimano models have seen for 25.4mm seat tube are low end ones such as the Thunderbird series.

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A lot of front derailleurs came in two clamp sizes and are often marked as such.---I think the average ebay seller may have no idea, so if you see one you like, you'd have to ask them to look. I might have something, I'll have to look, It would be period as I raced the things from about 78--85. What bike are you building?
 
Thank you for all the responses. I have learned a lot in this thread, and I suspect there is more to come. I am leaning toward the Suntour Spirt simply because it looks like it has the biggest stoutest hinge. I can live with it working backwards, although I see it clamps the cable and the housing moves the derailleur. That might get a little weird with modern stiff cable housing, but maybe it will be fine.
 
Hello,
Wheels manufacturing makes a shim to go from 28.6mm down to a 25.4mm (1 inch) seat tube. If you’re wanting to go more modern, find a derailleur that’s comes with shims to get you to 28.6, then use the second wheels manufacturing shim to get it down to 25.4 (1 inch). That’s what I was going to do on some project many years ago. I bought the shins and still have them. I hope that made any sense to you. Good luck. There’s probably a direct mount adapter that could be used as well. Then you’d have some modern options too.
 
I didn't want to use shims because I figured they would slip. Also, it seems nobody makes a direct mount adapter for 25.4. I dug deep for that but it doesn't seem to exist. I would be back to using shims.
 
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