Please help me identify my Campagnolo shifters and rear mech

tomBux2

I've never been able to get these to work very well together, I have a feeling they might be mismatched. Can anyone put a date & model on these?

jimwin

tomBux2 wrote:

I've never been able to get these to work very well together, I have a feeling they might be mismatched. Can anyone put a date & model on these?

It should not matter what model name they have or their date, they should match. Clearly the rear mech is marked as 10 speed, but are the shifters?

The only other point is to make sure the cable is correctly engaged with the rear mech clamps and that the inner cable runs freely in the outer sheath and there are no sticking points when you change up and down. If the cable does not run freely, change it (my experience of Campag 10-speed cables was that they needed replacing regularly).

If the cable runs freely, turn the bike over and check the alignment of the chain with the cogs as you index up and down. If there's a mismatch, then you might have a 9-speed shifter (I think it can be coaxed to 10 positions even though it only has 9).

Bryn_Mawr003

Looking at the linkage/pivot under the "10" of the "10 SPEED" graphic of the rear mech, it appears that it has suffered some crash damage Have you checked that your mech hanger and/or rear mech is still straight?

majormantra

The shifter looks like a 2009 or 2010 10 speed model. If it's 2009 or early 2010 then it's the version that was widely criticised for somewhat vague (non-positive) shifting, in particular when moving to bigger cogs.

That said, it should still work if everything is well set up and undamaged. (I have them on my race bike.) As jimwin points to, Campag is pretty sensitive to cable friction.

I'm not sure what year the mech is but I'm guessing maybe 2007/8? In any case, the cable pull for Campag 10 speed hasn't changed AFAIK.

I'd check that there are no excessively tight bends in your cables. If not, and the shifter has the correct 9 clicks, consider replacing the cables.

Monty Dog

I reckon the rear mech is 2006/7 onwards - I have one driven by a new shape Veloce shifter (2010) on one of my bikes and it works fine. Shifter will be 10 speed given shape, but 9/10 speed is inter-compatible IME. As said, check alignment of rear gear hanger and cables that cables are cut cleanly, square and so forth.

Other thing to check is that cassette spacers are in correct order - there are two different thicknesses and easy to mix-up.

When OP states "work very well together" is is on the upshift or downshift?

rolf_f

MajorMantra wrote:

The shifter looks like a 2009 or 2010 10 speed model. If it's 2009 or early 2010 then it's the version that was widely criticised for somewhat vague (non-positive) shifting, in particular when moving to bigger cogs.

Never heard that one at all. I have covered probably 8000 miles with a pair of those shifters and there is nothing vague about them. All I ever heard was that the 11 speed mechs of that time weren't as kerchunky as people expected from Campag and so that was engineered back into the more recent 11 speed systems.

Monty Dog wrote:

Other thing to check is that cassette spacers are in correct order - there are two different thicknesses and easy to mix-up.

Good advice. There are circular spacers for the small sprockets and ones with projections on for the larger. Campag helpfully, but somewhat unnecessarily, colour one of the larger ones translucent orange which they place above the largest of the circular spacers. What they don't do is colour code the thinner spacer that sits inside the largest sprocket. Therefore, this spacer can easily end up between any of the larger sprockets causing problems both with those two gears and the biggest sprocket. Typically Italian I suppose

The rear mech, whilst earlier than the shifter is of the same design as the rear mechs that do date from around 2010. Infact, my Look has the same Centaur levers matched to a 10 speed Record rear mech of the same sort of age as the OPs mech. All works fine as you'd expect.

west green

Here you go, they're on page 18 of this PDF. If this doesn't attached I can email the PDF

tomBux2

Thanks for all the info!

The hanger is straight (the damage to the mech was there when I bought it and the hanger has been replaced about 2 years ago)
I've just replaced the cable (with the Transfil campag spec ones) and the barrel adjusters which were bent plus the adjuster on the mech which had sheared. (This was all done before I tried to adjust it correctly)
I'm just downloading the PDF from campag so I can check I've got the spacers in the right order.

I'll reassemble the mech and let you know how I get on. If it persists I think it might be a case of taking the actual shifter to bits and servicing that (scary prospect!)

tomBux2

As an aside, I just used my ultrasonic cleaner (a little electric jewelry cleaning bath) filled with white spirit to clean my chain and mechs and they're looking good as new (minus the scratches). You can tell the chain's really clean as it's lost that gritty feel it usually has after using the Sheldon Brown method. Less work too!

tomBux2

Ok, got it working well! I don't know what the difference is as the cassette spacers were on correctly. I think the biggest difference was probably giving the mechs a clean. Hopefully this'll solve an issue I was having with the front mech sticking on the downshift sometimes too. I don't know why I didn't think of using the ultrasonic before, it's really an awesome thing to own, I usually use it to clean 7" records pretty effectively! One like this:

majormantra

Rolf F wrote:

Never heard that one at all. I have covered probably 8000 miles with a pair of those shifters and there is nothing vague about them. All I ever heard was that the 11 speed mechs of that time weren't as kerchunky as people expected from Campag and so that was engineered back into the more recent 11 speed systems.

I'm not making stuff up - see this for example: http://campyonly.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2032

Note that the upgrade kit is not available any more. If you google "centaur 2009 ergo" then the first hits are about this...

That said, I've been riding them for 3.5 years too and I've found them ok, albeit fairly sensitive to cable friction.

g00se

MajorMantra wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Never heard that one at all. I have covered probably 8000 miles with a pair of those shifters and there is nothing vague about them. All I ever heard was that the 11 speed mechs of that time weren't as kerchunky as people expected from Campag and so that was engineered back into the more recent 11 speed systems.

I'm not making stuff up - see this for example: http://campyonly.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2032

Note that the upgrade kit is not available any more. If you google "centaur 2009 ergo" then the first hits are about this...

That said, I've been riding them for 3.5 years too and I've found them ok, albeit fairly sensitive to cable friction.

It was only the earliest 2009s that were affected from what I can tell. They started fitting the new bits for late 2009 and 2010 (I bought two sets of the carbon Centaur UltraShift levers that were both marked 2009 and they came with the new internals).

The simplest way to tell is if the thumb levers make a good clack when changing gear

g00se

There's more here on how to identify if the 2009 levers has the old bit fitted or the new version.

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/campag ... 05558.html

rolf_f

Useful links folks!

My Look was built up in Feb 2010 and does have clear clackety shifts! The Ribble feels the same but the levers off that came off a display bike so that could have been put together at anytime. But it sounds like they should both be later 2009 my. I'll be checking!