Campagnol 8 speed Avanti? problems

stevechambers34

I have what I believe to be a pair of 8 speed Avanti ergos, there is only one gear lever ie it is moulded in one 'L' shaped piece of black plastic, they do appear to work ok but before I start looking for new hoods does anyone know of any inherent problems with them?

Rob Sallnow

Aside from them not being compatible in any way with 9 or 10 speed, no.

acorn_user

Although you could fiddle with the internals and buy the right part to make them 9 speed. Branford Bike has a description. Do they have the button as well?

Rob Sallnow

acorn_user wrote:

Although you could fiddle with the internals and buy the right part to make them 9 speed. Branford Bike has a description. Do they have the button as well?

I knew that the Escape mechanism used by current Centaur, Veloce etc was derived from that used in Xenon several years ago....put the part numbers for all the internals for 10 speed are exactly the same as Xenon 9 speed from 2003 :shock: .......however the 8 speed Avanti does have a slightly different layout and even has the G springs and holder which is not there in Escape so I don't think it will be easy to upgrade

DavidBelcher

stevechambers34 wrote:

I have what I believe to be a pair of 8 speed Avanti ergos, there is only one gear lever ie it is moulded in one 'L' shaped piece of black plastic, they do appear to work ok but before I start looking for new hoods does anyone know of any inherent problems with them?

If the (roughly U-shaped) part that carries the gear cable is plastic, then these can wear on their shaft over time and give shifting problems. Years ago I had either the Stratos or Avanti 8sp Ergos with the same "wishbone" one-piece shift lever, and this is pretty much what happened to them. Since then I've used Veloce, Chorus, Xenon and Mirage 9sp units, which had the offending item made in metal, and therefore proved trouble-free. Don't know if this was an outright re-design by Campag, or just that the cheaper models had this part in plastic and all others used metal.

David

acorn_user

I knew that the Escape mechanism used by current Centaur, Veloce etc was derived from that used in Xenon several years ago....put the part numbers for all the internals for 10 speed are exactly the same as Xenon 9 speed from 2003 :shock: .......however the 8 speed Avanti does have a slightly different layout and even has the G springs and holder which is not there in Escape so I don't think it will be easy to upgrade[/quote]

I am assuming that Avanti does not use the Escape mechanism. Old 9 speed Ergos (pointy hoods) used a mechanism like those used in current Chorus/Record and 06 Mirage and up. You can swap out the raster for those. You can even get a Sachs raster, which is pretty much Shimano 8 compatible. But I don't think you can put a 10 speed raster in a pointy hood lever... could be wrong.

Rob Sallnow

acorn_user wrote:

I am assuming that Avanti does not use the Escape mechanism. Old 9 speed Ergos (pointy hoods) used a mechanism like those used in current Chorus/Record and 06 Mirage and up. You can swap out the raster for those. You can even get a Sachs raster, which is pretty much Shimano 8 compatible. But I don't think you can put a 10 speed raster in a pointy hood lever... could be wrong.

Avanti had a unique system and the ratchet piece used is a lot smaller with only one level of teeth rather than the two used by other Ergos including the current Chorus and Record....so you wouldn't be able to make them 9 speed without changing just about every gear related part except the G Springs and their holder, and to resurrect an Avanti lever it just wouldn't be worth the bother or cost.

acorn_user

Rob Sallnow wrote:

Avanti had a unique system and the ratchet piece used is a lot smaller with only one level of teeth rather than the two used by other Ergos including the current Chorus and Record....so you wouldn't be able to make them 9 speed without changing just about every gear related part except the G Springs and their holder, and to resurrect an Avanti lever it just wouldn't be worth the bother or cost.

Cool

It sounded like something was up. I've used all of an Avanti groupset apart from the levers I think. I have the front mech on my cross bike, and test road bikes with the other bits. The brakes were ace.