30 teeth sprocket for 8 speed Campag cassettes

[Chat Noir]

I didn’t know you could get a 30 t sprocket for an 8 speed Campag cassette until I saw a thread on Retrobike forum. If I’ve missed something obvious all these years perhaps someone will be kind enough to point me in the right direction. Otherwise:

http://clemenzo.com/en/marchisio/8-9-sp ... ogs-jc-8-9

Delivered quickly from Germany for £11.52 (not aware of any customs duty). Initial problem because the sprocket spline teeth were too long to allow it to fit onto the freehub (early 1990s). Campag technical documents on line make me think that this fits the current spline pattern but, since I don’t have any Campag components later than the early/mid 1990s, I wouldn’t know.

I carefully filed them a little shorter and was then able to fit. Took out the 14 t sprocket and the sprockets are evenly spread, 13 – 30, with the 30 outside the 26 t. Tested on the turbo and all seems fine. Front shifter first gen Athena (probably 1993), rear derailleur only a short cage Mirage, no problems shifting up and down and no need to fiddle with the B screw. This is to go on a bike I’m building up for my partner with a Campag triple (50-40-30) – she likes to have a low gear when needed and much better than the 26 I had otherwise. My Campag equipped bike has 53 / 39 front and only goes down to 26 at the back – I’m now tempted to put a 30 on the back and get out on this bike a bit more often.

As various people have pointed out on the forum, once you’re into your 60s lowering your gears becomes ‘desirable’, if not essential, and certainly justified.

[Mick F]

As various people have pointed out on the forum, once you’re into your 60s lowering your gears becomes ‘desirable’, if not essential, and certainly justified.

My Mercian has a 30t cassette though 10sp.
Inner ring is 28T, and I certainly need the lower gears!

One thing that I have done ............... and I highly recommend it ............ is to fit a Sturmey Archer CS-RF3. It will take a Shimano cassette.
http://www.sturmey-archer.com/en/produc ... rf3-silver

By picking a single, a double - or even a triple - chainset, you can have any gearing you want. At the moment, my Moulton is a 90sp bike - triple 10sp and SA3sp with a top gear 134" and a bottom of 16" plus all ratios in between. Complicated, I know, though I could fit a double instead but still have the range.

[Valbrona]

When Campag 8 speed was alive the cassettes were also used in their MTB groupsets, like Olympus, Centaur and record Off-Road, so a 30t sprocket is no surprise.

Interlock Racing Design do 10 speed Camapg cassettes in both 32 and 34 max I believe, and possibly also 11 speed.

As far as I know, an 8 speed sprocket fitted onto their 8 speed freehub bodies and nowt else.

[Brucey]

some Miche and Bianchi cassette hubs still use the campag 8s spline (certainly up to 10s).

Also you can modify a campag 10s sprocket to fit the 8s spline; it just requires that the splines on the sprocket are ground down. A snag is that the #1 sprocket of a 10s cassette is dished somewhat, so if you want to fit it to an 8s cassette hub as part of an 8s cassette then you may have to fit a spacer before the #1 sprocket.

cheers

[drossall]

Or buy a complete 8-speed Marchisio cassette. I think I'm right in saying that their 8-speed cassettes use the same spline depth as their 9s (and genuine Campag 9s), whereas Campag 8s were shallower. That's why you had to grind down the splines.

The deeper splines should make the assembly more robust. But I'm sure Brucey will be back to give chapter and verse on this soon

[Brucey]

my view is that the 8s spline is strong enough if it is steel on steel, but not if it is made in other materials (the original shimano spline has the same issue). The deeper splines are intended to be stronger even if the materials are not as wear resistant as hard steel.

cheers

[Chat Noir]

Yes, the 8 speed Marchisio cassette does have the longer splines, hence not a solution for me. As the website states 'Attention, the cassette does NOT fit Campagnolo 8 speed hubs' which sort of begs a question if you've only got the older 8 speed Campag hubs, like me.

8 spd Campag cassettes which have the shallow spline are readily available, just not possible to get lower sprockets than 26 - hence my excitement at finding a means of going down to 30 without a lot of modification required. Can't see for all practical purposes that the shorter splines will be a problem but good to learn that other sprockets also can be simply modified to fit.

Thanks

[fausto99]

resurrecting this thread - has anyone looked into what's involved in modifying Shimano sprockets to fit Campagnolo freehub splines?

[sjs]

resurrecting this thread - has anyone looked into what's involved in modifying Shimano sprockets to fit Campagnolo freehub splines?

Shimano and Campag 8-speed cassettes differ by only 0.2mm in spacing, so a Shimano wheel/freehub/cassette will (more or less) just work. Better, the shimano cassette can be shimmed, for instance with Al from a drinks can.

[Brucey]

resurrecting this thread - has anyone looked into what's involved in modifying Shimano sprockets to fit Campagnolo freehub splines?

To fit 8s campag splines? There are eight splines on the campag sprockets and nine splines on the shimano sprockets. If you grind a shimano sprocket until it goes onto the campag freehub body, the resultant engagement isn't terribly convincing.

If you want modern sprockets to fit a campag 8s freehub body, look to aftermarket ones (Miche, Ambrosio, etc) or look to use reprofiled campag 10s sprockets; the latter have enough material in the right places that you can make them secure.

The other (easier) option is to respace a shimano cassette to the campag pitch and to use it on a shimano hub, as sjs suggests.

cheers

[fausto99]

The other (easier) option is to respace a shimano cassette to the campag pitch and to use it on a shimano hub, as sjs suggests.

Am already doing this on anther wheel and it works perfectly. Shame not to use my Campy hub wheels though...

[mattsccm]

And how about the other way round? Have 2 sets of Record Ti Ergos which are 8 speed and two pairs of 10 speed Record hubbed wheels. If only I could make them match. Repsacing 10 speed cassettes I guess. Anyone?

[Brucey]

it ought to be easy enough to do. You can also convert the levers to 9s or 10s, but the correct parts are difficult to find now.

cheers

[drossall]

Respacing 9-speed cassettes should work better. I know Condor had some of those not too long ago. I believe that there's no difference between (recent) 9- and 10-speed hubs?

[Gattonero]

Respacing 9-speed cassettes should work better. I know Condor had some of those not too long ago. I believe that there's no difference between (recent) 9- and 10-speed hubs?

The Campagnolo spline pattern has not changed since... 1999? From the 9sp to the current 12sp the deep 9-spline pattern has been the same, except for the titanium-hubs&cassettes but those are so rare that is not really an option!
You can fit 8sp Campagnolo cassettes (9 shallow splines) on 9/10sp Campagnolo bodies, but they don't fully engage and soon the freehub body will be marked and likely will crack, this freehub was not meant to use shallow-splined sprockets.
A better solution is to find any 9sp Campagnolo/Miche cassette with loose sprockets (the latter brand, surely is) and drop one sprocket plus replace the spacers with 3.3mm ones. There used to be an official Campagnolo kit of spacers ("kit-003") with 7 blue metal spacers made right for this purpose, but is very difficult to find now.
A solution that requires gathering a certain amount of materials, can be to find a stash of the 1.6mm Campagnolo spacers. Those were used in the 10sp cassettes between the 6th and 7th sprocket, you will need two per sprocket so a total of 12! Make sure you're good friends with the local bike shop