Downtube to STI shifter conversion on vintage road bike

MungoMan

My commuting road bike is a Reynolds 501 with down tube shifters..
The rear mech is a shamino sora, and the cassette is a 7 speed. The gearing is indexed.
I want to change to an STI shifter controlling the rear gears only. I don’t need STI on the chainring gears.
Is there a compatable shifter which I can get ? Will I need to change the cassette or rear mech ?
Can anyone point me to an instruction video or website to explain how to do the work.
I hope to pick up second hand sti shifter on ebay (a new pair of shifters would cost as much as the bike is worth)

gman2k

I presume you are looking to get a brake/shifter STI unit?
I'm not sure if there is any available in 7 speed.
I'd recommend changing to 8 speed Sora, although this may mean a new/SH rear mech, and defo a new block and chain and S/H RHS shifter!

Paul Kiernan

You should get away with just changing the shifter. See first part of Sheldon on "alternate cable routing"

I recently fitted a pair of 10-speed 105 5600 shifters to control a 7-speed rear shifter and it works perfectly using offset cable routing. I had been looking for a cheap pair of 8-speed shifters on Ebay but they were all too expensive so I splashed out €110 on the 10-speed so at some stage maybe I'll upgrade the whole lot to 10-speed.

B Morrissey

I did it a couple of years ago with no problems whatsoever - I had hope technology titanium hubs - 8 speed shimano casette on it - with shimano 105 reac mech and suntour superbe pro (bought in 1991) front - I put a set of ultegra sti levers on it and indexing works fine

Holyboy

If your freehub body is seven speed you wont be able to fit an eight speed cassette to it, you could replace the free hub body of course but things like that can get messy, different cones, seals etc but if it is an eight speed free hub then you could up grade the lot I suppose, I know I have a set of Shimano RSX STI levers in my large pile of c##p that is quickly taking over my place, not sure what speed they are but good chance they are sevens, if they are you are welcome to them for nothing.

MungoMan

Thanks Holyboy for your offer, but I live in UK now, and I’ll pick up an STI here from ebay.

Thanks for the replies…I didn’t even know what a freehub body was until last night….or never heard of offset routing. I’m looking forward to the challenge of getting it all working.

lennymc

holyboy, if you could find them I wouldnt mind throwing you a few bob for them.

Sorry for the hijack OP.