Campagnolo 12 speed

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colin54
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by colin54 »

Thanks Brucey that's interesting,I just remembered the Giant Iguana that I bought in the US in 1991

was Suntour equipped I believe, it had x-press shifters as I recall, these were the first indexed shifters I

ever had, never had any bother with them, but the bike never did a great mileage once back in the UK,

and was eventually stolen.It was a low/midrange type bike, nicely finished metallic black, but heavy Chrome/Moly frame.

P1090635 (640x426).jpg


(Edited to add original picture of bike)
Last edited by colin54 on 14 Apr 2018, 10:18am, edited 1 time in total.
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Brucey
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Brucey »

Cugel wrote: ....Campagnolo of the time was already sinking towards a condition designed more to achieve lower price rather than their previously high standard of engineering and materials. Their hub components wore in no time at all.....


I would have to disagree with you there. Campag hub bearings were still well made in the late '70s and early '80s. The main problems were that

- the rear axles broke
- the flanges were in some cases poorly (re-) designed (eg C-record)
- there was much spare part confusion

For a long time there were basically only two types of campag hub; with either Tipo or Record internals. That meant four types of cone; two fronts and two rears. If you used the wrong cone in any given hub the bearings would look as if they might work OK but actually simply disintegrate. In practice it wasn't difficult to tell if you had the wrong cones, they were a different shape and they were made differently too, so didn't look anywhere near the same. Nonetheless I saw many people try to 'improve' their hubs this way.... :shock: They often concluded that 'these hubs are not very good'.... :shock: :shock:

[NB You could fit 'record' bearings into a tipo front, provided the cup inserts were changed as well as the cones, but the cup inserts were a different size at the rear so if you had tipo hubshells you were stuck with tipo bearings at the rear. ]

Once the new groupsets were launched in the '80s suddenly there were dozens of different cones that didn't look much different to one another. A good LBS near me kept stocks of campag spares and they didn't know which bits would work in which hub either...

Anyway even with a choice of just two Campag bearing systems (that were obviously different to me, they looked nothing like one another) a lot of mistakes were made, and with more parts available that just got worse. I never did get to the bottom of the newer part compatibility and I don't know anyone else who did either. By contrast Shimano hubs used the same cone profile in all their hubs for a very long time; the cones might have varied in obvious ways like length and seal type, but by and large they would not cause the hubs to disintegrate if the wrong part was fitted. Smart move!

BTW concerning component longevity, one has to factor in one's varying power output into these calculations. BITD I used to regularly stomp on the pedals hard enough to sustain a few hundred watts continuously and well over 1KW briefly. I used to wear stuff out quite quickly and a lot of it was at real risk of breaking too. These days such power outputs are a distant memory and everything lasts a lot more miles as a consequence.

cheers
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Mick F
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Mick F »

I wonder what the rear hub internals are like?
Hopefully better.

I have a 9sp/10sp Chorus rear hub that the freewheel body has failed twice. I've given up with it.
One was a longitudinal split in the alu body, and the other was a cracked pawl seat.

Cheapest way to repair them is to buy another complete hub and swap the internals .......... done that once but not bothering again.
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Cugel
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Cugel »

Brucey wrote:
Cugel wrote: ....Campagnolo of the time was already sinking towards a condition designed more to achieve lower price rather than their previously high standard of engineering and materials. Their hub components wore in no time at all.....


I would have to disagree with you there. Campag hub bearings were still well made in the late '70s and early '80s. ......

Once the new groupsets were launched in the '80s suddenly there were dozens of different cones that didn't look much different to one another. A good LBS near me kept stocks of campag spares and they didn't know which bits would work in which hub either...

Anyway even with a choice of just two Campag bearing systems (that were obviously different to me, they looked nothing like one another) a lot of mistakes were made, and with more parts available that just got worse. I never did get to the bottom of the newer part compatibility and I don't know anyone else who did either. By contrast Shimano hubs used the same cone profile in all their hubs for a very long time; the cones might have varied in obvious ways like length and seal type, but by and large they would not cause the hubs to disintegrate if the wrong part was fitted. Smart move!

BTW concerning component longevity, one has to factor in one's varying power output into these calculations. BITD I used to regularly stomp on the pedals hard enough to sustain a few hundred watts continuously and well over 1KW briefly. I used to wear stuff out quite quickly and a lot of it was at real risk of breaking too. These days such power outputs are a distant memory and everything lasts a lot more miles as a consequence.

cheers


It's certainly true that Campag stuff was very well made in the 70s and early 80s, as you say. I had Record derailleurs and a chainset that lasted me ten years, with only one ring renewal.

Around 1987 I bought a pair of their Croce D'Aune wheels, which looked very good and even had something of a deep-rim aero profile. Their bearings wore in no time and, no matter how much white grease I pumped into the hub-hole, water got in and rotted the surfaces whenever it rained. There were no seals and the things seemed designed to expel grease and suck in the rain!

Again, as you mention, it was very difficult indeed to identify and find replacement cones and balls - not that is mattered much as the races in the hub shells were shot-at by water-rot.

By contrast, I had a pair of wheels built in 1991 with Shimano 600 sealed hubs and Mavic ceramic rims. I still have them and they still spin for ages, as smooth as butter with no graunch audible down the screwdriver held to the fork end and one's ear, just a pleasant rumble. The rims too are unworn, unlike the many brake blocks they ate.

****

Even when a thrusting racer lad, I was always smooth in the power output and "kind" to the bikes, despite being a large muscular type. Others who were not quite as racy went through their bike bits at an alarming rate. I suspect it has to do less with the power output and more with the way it's applied ... some lads just rive at stuff, eh? :-)

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
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Brucey
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Brucey »

I had a set of CdA pedals and they were like C-record except that the finish was polished not anodised and the bearings didn't have seals on them. They suffered too.

I have often wondered if the little hole that was in older campag hub dustcaps had a disproportionately great effect on helping the hubs dry out after they had got water in.

cheers
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Gattonero
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Gattonero »

Mick F wrote:I wonder what the rear hub internals are like?
Hopefully better.

I have a 9sp/10sp Chorus rear hub that the freewheel body has failed twice. I've given up with it.
One was a longitudinal split in the alu body, and the other was a cracked pawl seat.

Cheapest way to repair them is to buy another complete hub and swap the internals .......... done that once but not bothering again.


I don't think they are going to redesign the hubs soon, they've worked well since 1999-2000 with breakages like yours being a rare exception.
Any freehub body that is made out of alluminium will not last forever and will need replacing at some point, the lifespan been extremely different according to the rider/pedalling style. One indicator of fatigue in the freehub can be the pawl pockets, usually they start to "curl" up and cracking noise/broken springs are a symptom that the freehub body is at the end of its life. By this time, it can also happen that fatigue makes the bearings not steady in their position, i.e can be removed too easily.
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
gfk_velo
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by gfk_velo »

Additional note to Gattonero's -

the split cassette body problem afflicted very few cassette bodies but was part of the reason for the transition to the all-alloy body in 2006. The ones that split were pretty much all the pre-2006 type where the pawl seats and "tail" of the body were steel, the mounting for the cassettes was alloy and the tail was screwed and bonded into the sprocket mount.

The failure, usually longitudinal along the leading edge of the bottom of one of the "leading" edges of a spline was a torque-transfer tear in a fairly thin bit of material that overlaid the screwed and bonded junction of the two parts.

The re-designed, all alloy body needs a new axle as well, because the pawl seats were re-designed and reinforced so that the axle had to change section slightly to pass through. Campagnolo took the opportunity to machine some other material away from the axle as well.

Wear and tear in the pawl seats is still an occasional problem and is actually on the increase now with ultra-low (by the standards of just a few years ago) meaning much higher levels of torque transfer. Campagnolo have now released 2 new design pawl-and-spring kits designed to help recify not only that issue - but also the spring breakages that are occasionally seen.

FH-BO015 for all the alloy cassette bodies
FH-BO015X for the steel cassette bodies
The pawls have slightly differing lengths so the two kits are *not* interchangeable.

There are a variety of reasons for Campagnolo spring breakages but one of the main ones is actually incorrect assembly of the cassette body into the hub rather than a design or manufacturing problem. Many mechanics and consumers take the lazy option of counter-rotating the pawls against the drive-ring and pushing the cassette body "inwards" to get the the pawls to engage and the cassette body to "drop in". That works - but it can cause the pawl to put a small chip in the surface of the spring that is then a stress raiser - when you look at the broken springs you can often see that the break is coincident with the edge of one of the pawls, when it is in it's compressed position. It's better to manually compress all three pawls at the same time and drop the body into the hub, the same way as we used to when they were individually sprung.

Recently (last year or so) we are seeing more Shimano cassette body failures in the workshops, alongside many other makers, too. Possibly part of that is also down to torque transfer loadings. The only hub design I have seen so far which might *in theory* be far less susceptible to this is the DT type, with what is basically a radial-toothed tapered dog-clutch.

On another note, from an earlier post by Brucie -

Rear axle failures in old steel rear axles were not restricted to Campag - in the 80s and 90s we saw huge numbers in Maillard, OMAS, Mavic and many others, especially as freewheels became wider and wider.

The problem disappeared not only with Freehubs and later cassette hubs from other makers, too but also with better frame production and less "adaptation" of old (nearly always) steel frames, to new standards.

The main reason appeared not the axle material - but the combination of badly made frames (where the dropouts were not parallel to start with), frames made with cheap, pressed flexy droputs at a time where steel MTBs were starting to use lower gears (back to the torque transfer thing) and frames being opened out from 120 to 126, or even sometimes 120 to 130mm, without the rear ends being cold-set back to parallel and the loadings that imposed on the axles. The axle would "try" to flex to accommodate the fact that the locknuts were pulled out of parallel by the QR clamping them against the dropouts - and the effect was like breaking a stick over your knee - it's the reason that the point of failure was always at the inner end of the drive-side cone.
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Bmblbzzz
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Wasn't it Campag who originally came up with the concept of the groupset?
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foxyrider
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by foxyrider »

Gfk-velo's comments about axle breakages almost exactly cover my experience over the years. Bent/broken axles. Which ceased when I had a frame made specifically for 6 speed with Campah vertical dropouts. Next time I had the issue was on a 'cheap' early steel mtb - problem solved with my first cassette hubbed wheels.

That was all late 70's/80's. Since then the issues with axles have been almost nil - well apart from on a generic Shimano copy hub fitted to my Giant SCR @ 10 years ago (freehub failure, axle breakage...). Not had any issues with any of the miriad of Campag hubs I have since the 80's. I am having issues with a Campag pattern Kinesis freehub - continuous bearing failure but that has no bearing (sic) on this thread.
Convention? what's that then?
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Des49
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Des49 »

A few years ago I stopped using my Campag Chorus freewheel hubs as I kept breaking the axles, then this probably led to a cracked dropout which fortunately could just be welded.

Now on that frame I use a Shimano 105 rear cassette hub, strays away from the original spec, but I value the frame more. I have also now replaced the Chorus brake levers & brakes with Shimano levers and calipers, shame, but it is important to have decent brakes!

I have a couple of bikes to rebuild, one Chorus, one Corsa Record equiped, be a shame not to use the lovely hubs especially on the latter, but I worry about the rear axles, will look into trying the sealed bearing on the axle end to support itself against the freewheel.
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Gattonero
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Gattonero »

gfk_velo wrote:...

There are a variety of reasons for Campagnolo spring breakages but one of the main ones is actually incorrect assembly of the cassette body into the hub rather than a design or manufacturing problem. Many mechanics and consumers take the lazy option of counter-rotating the pawls against the drive-ring and pushing the cassette body "inwards" to get the the pawls to engage and the cassette body to "drop in". That works - but it can cause the pawl to put a small chip in the surface of the spring that is then a stress raiser - when you look at the broken springs you can often see that the break is coincident with the edge of one of the pawls, when it is in it's compressed position. It's better to manually compress all three pawls at the same time and drop the body into the hub, the same way as we used to when they were individually sprung.
...


this picture shows the problem
Image
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
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Gattonero
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Gattonero »

By the way, one thing that people hasn't said yet, is about the frame dropouts those parts are going to.
Manufacturers are making the derailleurs stiffer and with stronger springs, but most of the "modern" frames will hold those parts onto tiny, flimsy, rather under-engineered hangers.
These are examples of toady's foolishness! :roll:

Image

Image

Sorry if someone gets upset, but this is idiocy in design :?
Image

How can you expect the gears to work well if the rear mech is held in place by thin air? :roll:
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
PaulB
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by PaulB »

I buy Campagnolo and really like the way it looks and performs. I don't race so the 12 speed cassette will be of little use to me - it was specifically developed for racing to help maintain a smooth cadence when gear changing. I built my last three road bikes because I was frustrated at not being able to buy an "off the shelf" machine with Campag as standard. I was thinking about using Ribble Cycles on line bike builder to construct a Grand Fondo bike but they no longer appear to stock Campagnolo. I was in a large cycle store in Manchester this weekend and did not see one bike with Campag components so I won't be buying anything there!

A previous post compared the cost of Campag's Potenza with Shimano 105. Potenza was launched to rival Ultegra so it should be more expensive.

I like the idea of SRAM Etap which does away with all cables and wires except for the brakes. There was a Cannondale fitted with Etap in the Manchester store and it looked so clean without the gear cables. I think manufacturers must get great deals from Shimano to use their products because the big S seems to have an almost monopoly on "off the shelf" bikes. I'll stick with Campagnolo as it has served me well for the 50 or so years I have been using it. I also like to try to support British, or at least European, made products so Campagnolo's Italian Centaur group set (Potenza is made in Romania - I think) fits well with my Italian made alloy road frame.

There's nothing wrong with Shimano's performance but I just think their brake/gear shifters are ugly. I have 105 on my folder and there is no problem but those shifters are just gross!
Brucey
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Re: Campagnolo 12 speed

Post by Brucey »

Ribble still seem to list a lot of campag stuff on their website.

I don't think it is as easy as 'groupset X' is made in Italy, 'Y' is made elsewhere. For example the bulk of all of Campag's carbon parts are made in Romania (with input into all groupsets I think) and the 'origin rules' mean that you can take a load of parts (from literally anywhere) and provided there is some minimal level of manufacturing (which might be as little as putting the stickers on it and putting it in a box) then you can put a label on saying 'Made in XXX' as the last country of significant manufacturing input. So lots of parts that say 'made in italy' have not, er, been made in Italy. In some cases it would be difficult to attribute a country of origin; some of campag's brakes contain parts from about five different countries, (including a different source for the left arm and the right arm... :shock: ). Some campag brakesets come entirely from Taiwan and it says so on the box. BTW Romania has been in the EU for over ten years now anyway.

To say that one groupset competes with another from a different manufacturer is what, based on what the manufacturer says? It could be based on price, performance, perception, finish quality, or just wishful thinking. Campag have plenty of the latter, and have for years maintained that their third tier groupset is to 'compete with Ultegra'. No one else (who doesn't have an axe to grind) quite believes it.

I find myself in the odd position of really liking a lot of campag's older stuff (when I grew up it was pretty much the only game in town), not having the slightest interest in buying any of their current offerings, wondering how they are going to survive, and yet thinking it would be very bad for cycling if they went bust, in the same way as if Formula One wouldn't quite be the same if there was no Ferrari.

cheers
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