Pulleys That Work With a Nuovo Record Derailleur?

No pictures right now but I wanted to throw this out as I am dealing with this issue again.First I found a thread that talks about this issue
Split-NR-SR-RD-pulleys

07.07.2012
I have two pairs of the Soma pulleys on two different bikes and am finding they seem to have a weak point. I have one set on a bike with a NR derailleur and another with a GS derailleur; the GS I ride most the time. Recently I noticed the shifting of the GS had gotten sloppy and there was a lot of friction in the drivetrain. I removed the pulleys and found both had bushings so worn that the steel sleeve was rattling around; I probably had 4000 miles on them. I checked the bike with the NR derailleur and found the jockey pulley was worn but the tension pulley was not. I'm not sure what the problem is and it may be my fault for not servicing them enough (I've never had this problem with Campy pulleys). I do have one theory however. When I first installed the Soma pulleys on the GS derailleur I was surprised to see some green corrosion inside the bushing and outside the sleeve. I'm thinking the manufacturer may has used a grade of brass with too much copper or too soft (or something like that).
I do have a fix however that is still in the experimental stage . I have a number of worn Campy pulleys where I pounded out the bushing (these bushing seem to never wear out of spec) and did the same for the worn Soma pulleys. The GS/NR/SR bushings are 12mm outside diameter, where the Soma pulleys are 10.1mm (the difference is the thickness of the brass; I first tried to drill out a Soma pulley which crack it). So I ground down the OD of tht Campy bushing to fit the Soma body using a simple tool; I slid the bushing onto a 1/4"x 6" drive extension some black tape underneath  so it would say put. I then attached the extension to a drill motor and clamped the drill motor in a vice.   I then took a file and ground the Campy bushing to about 10.1+; slightly narrowing on one side so it could be easily inserted into Soma bodies; the bushings were then pounded  into the Soma bodies with no problem. In regards to which sleeve to use, the Campy sleeve OD is 9.3 mm while the Soma are 9mm. The Campy sleeve is also about .2-.3 longer, so you either need to grind down the Campy bushing or use the Campy sleeve (I used the Campy sleeve). I have installed the Campy bushings in two Soma pulleys and road tested them for about 6 month and they show no sign of wear.

 As of April 28, the combination pulleys have worked flawlessly with no sign of excessive bushing wear. 

1970's Olmo Gran Sport

 This is the latest and probably the last revision of this bike.

Originally it was constructed as a Cross Bike for fire roads; and a chance to show off some Campagnolo Nuovo Gran Sport (GS) components. For the longest while I did not identify the maker until I could be sure. I am now sure it is an Italian Olmo Mexico like this one Vintage Olmo Frame . This frame appears to have the same combination of lugs and lug cut outs, seat clamp seat stay ends and fork, so there is enough similarity to ID my bike; the only difference is the dropouts. My bike has Campagnolo short dropouts will the Mexico has Gipiemme dropouts. Either that it could be a Competition sans any identifying marks identifying it as an Olmo.

When I first put this bike together I was going for a Gran Sport grouppo but I was foiled by not being able to find Grand Sport brake calipers with standard length arms, so I ended up with Triomphe  levers and calipers with some generic gum looking hoods, until I could find the appropriate Gran Sport brakes.I first bid on a set of GS levers, which I got for a very good price. I then bought some "OEM" gum brake hoods. The hoods are likely replicas, but they look so good, no one has found a way to tell the difference. Then bought a set of Campy standard NOS GS arms from Boulder Bicycle/aka Rene Herse and used them to replace the arms from the Triomphe calipers I already had.(Boulder Bicycle is a great resource BTW). But the OCD in me would not allow this to continue, so I found some of under the cap slotted washers and flat nuts that came on the GS and Nuovo Record brake calipers (also from Bouolder Bicycle). This process has been very frustrating process. Originally I bought a set of GS calipers but the arms were too short. I sold these calipers and bought the set of Triomphe I had been using. Had I just waited a little longer, I could have simply switched the arms on the original GS calipers, or bought a NOS set of GS standard brakes and levers (with hoods) that Boulder Bicycle recently added to their store for $200; either way I would have spent less and done a lot less piecing together, but as they say hindsight is always 20:20. I finally found some OEM dome nuts and they do look good.

So here it is;
  

Front GS Bake caliper with the OEM shiny dome cap

  

The GS levers with Globe World logo gum hoods.

A GS rear derailleur with a Regina Corsa 14-27 freewheel and stainless rear housing.

A GS crankset; the large chainring is an Ofmega 51t and the arms have been filed down to meet with the crank arms.

GS rod actuated front derailleur.

The GS downtube brase- on levers were the same as Nuovo Record, however the clamp on were sometimes different. I modified these with a short threaded stud so I could use the GS clamp-on tensioners. 

I put together this wheelset with Nuovo Tipo hubs (used with most Gran Sport equipped bikes) and some Velo Orange PBP 700c box section rims.

and of course no bike of this kind would be complete without a Selle Italia Turbo saddle.

I still have a Mavic Shimano 105 wheelset with some Kenda 32mm cross tires, and this is the only 700c off road bike I have; so simple wheel change (and a little rear derailleur tweaking) allows me to jump back and forth between road and off-road.

Interesting Bottom Bracket

Recently I saw this auction on ebay. I'm slowly putting together a Victory gruppo so I bit on the description

Campagnolo Victory - Bottom Bracket + Spindle

This is what the seller had put up for auction; if nothing else those are not Victory cups. I did a little research and and eventually won the auction'

I like to think of myself as knowing Campy components and your's stuck out. First as I said, the BB was  not a Victory BB; the spindle was Victory but the the Campy bottom brackets were aluminum with steel races, marked  the old "Brev. Inter." (International Patent) markings rather than "Made In Italy". Below are some Super Record cups that look similar, compliments of   VeloBase.com

According to Bicycle Classics.com * Victory 109 mm 68-SS spindle, fits 1958-1987 Record Pista cranks too, FRENCH or BSC, same as Record 68-P-120 Pista except it is marked 68-SS . While it's possible the previous user used the C-Record cups with the Victory spindle and crankset, but it's more likely the user needed to replace the C-record Pista spindle and did so with the Victory spindle.

 * Bicycle Classics.com also said Only the double NR and SR cranksets used the rifled (thick-wall) cups. All singles and triples used Record (thin-wall) cups. Which shows even the experts are sometimes wrong.

The Miche Conversion Cassette

A conversion cassette is a way to make Shimano and Campagnolo play together. One common conversion is to use Campagnolo shifters with an otherwise Shimano drivetrain; these are referred to as a Shimergo. The primary reason is Campagnolo has a more positive shifting mechanism, which tends to last longer and is rebuildable. Shimano on the other hand makes cheaper and mored varied cassettes and very well made freehubs. The conversion uses a Campagnolo 10 speed shifter and a Shimano 9 speed drivetrain. The conversion is made possible by re-routing the rear derailleur cable called “hubbub” routing. I put a conversion together using the hubbub routing and it works very well (see the above Shimergo link).

Next I decided try a conversion cassette as another way to combine different components, maintain 10 speeds and to test the quality of the shifting. Unlike the hubub routing, a conversion cassette uses both Campagnolo shifter and rear derailleur. Campy and Shimano have different splines, so you can’t put a Campagnolo cassette on a Shimano freehub; further Shimano and Campagnolo use different spacing so a conversion cassette would use a Shimano spline with Campagnolo spacing (or visa versa). One way to do this to buy one ready made; Wheels Manufacturing, IRD, and American Classic all make a form of a conversion cassette; the one thing they have in common are they are very expensive; $200+. The one exception is Miche. Miche makes cassettes with individual cassette cogs and spacers. While they don't advertise building a conversion cassette many have suggested that it would be an easy conversion to simply use the Shimano cogs with the Campagnolo spacers.So, I mounted a Campy 10 speed rear derailleur and I needed to make the front derailleur 10 speed friendly again. Campy 9 speed compatible 10 speed front derailleur have a spacer that
clicks into place and I removed it as I was running a 9 speed chain drivetrain; it was a simple procedure to install it again.








Next I bought a Miche Shimano spline and spaced 10 speed cassette; it’s cheaper to buy a complete cassette than 10 individual cogs. At the same time I bought 7 Campagnolo spacers (the Shimano
spacers are red and the Campy’s are blue). I then switched out 7 the 7 Shimano spacers for Campagnolo spacers. The reason there are not 9 is the first and last cogs have integral cogs; the fact that they are on the ends of the cassette mitigate any issues with the different spacer width.

I installed the Miche conversion cassette on the Shimano freehub and one thing was immediately evident, the cassette had grown by 1.19mm. (The Campy spacers are .17mm wider than Shimano’s). The result was the end 12t cog did not connect with the splines. I tightened the lockring while holding the cog in place and after a few turns I could feel the cog connecting with the splines and I was able to continue to tighten the lockring without out the cog turning. Now I had mounted the Miche cassette with the Shimano spacers and even with a 1mm spacer behind the cassette, the cog connected with the splines, so I know it was very close. Further this is not unusual with some 10 speed freewheel combinations, so unless you are the type that uses the last cog regularly and exert a lot of pressure on it such as sprinting, it should not be a concern. I also noticed that the derailleur cage was very close to the spokes when the chain was in the last big gear. This is also not unusual for 10 speed drivetrains, especially Miche who has the last gear offset toward the spokes. The general rule is, if the derailleur is not hitting the spokes it will work; in my case the cage had about 3-4mm clearance, which I find acceptable.

After adjusting the rear derailleur, I took the bike for a test ride and the conversion cassette worked pretty well; it should be noted that one should not expect the near flawless shifting that comes from a Shimano or Campy cassette. There was however, a rough shift in the area of the 6 and 7 cog (smallest to largest). While on the 6 cog, he 7 cog was trying pick up the chain for a few revolution and then would settle down and stop. I was able to adjust this out with the barrel adjuster by turning it down as far as possible while the derailleur was still shifting from the first to second cog, but the shifting felt flat. Somewhere in the back pf my memory, I remember reading that Campy used different spacing between some cogs. I looked it up and sure as heck Campy places a .14mm wider cog between 6 and 7 (the other 8 spacers are 2.41; the spacer between 6 and 7 is 2.55). Since the Miche spacer is actually 2.26, I needed a 2.40 spacer to account for the wider spacer. This of course is in all practicality the same as a standard Campy spacer; and having a few in my parts box I used it to replace the Miche 2.26 spacer between cogs 6 and 7; it is an optical illusion that it looks thinner, the OD of the spacer is simply smaller.

The difference was remarkable for such a minor tweak. First the shifting felt more positive on all the gears not just cogs 6 and 7. Second to keep the rear derailleur cage away from the spokes, I set the stop as close as possible, which resulted in an increased effort to click the shift into the end gear (this may also have been due to the spacing). Well, .14mm apparently moved the indexing outward and the shift now feels the same as the rest.

There is another method of making Campagnolo and Shimano play together using a shifter adapter called a Shiftmate.This little gadget uses two tiny pulley wheels to change the shifter cable pull. Not only does it work for Campagnolo and Shimano cross platforms, it allows one to mix and match shifters and cassettes of different speeds and manufacturer. I currently have one that allows the use of my Campy 10 speed shifters with a Shimano 10 speed cassette. After riding with the campy spaced cassette long enough to determine it was working very well, I replaced the Shimano spacers and installed the the shift mate on your left. I was a little tricky getting it right, but if you read and follow the instructions exactly, it appears to be working very well. I will update after several road rides. FTF

Two weeks later and about 300 miles later the shiftmate has yet to miss a shift; thi sis the way to go.

But back to the Miche Conversion Cassette; if you want to know if you can make a conversion cassette with a Miche cassette the answer is a resounding yes; as long as you are willing to put up with slightly inferior shifting and pay attention to the details. And it is certainly cheaper than a new wheelset and the other conversion cassettes..

Different Models of Campy Triomphe Brakes

A while ago I needed a set of Victory/Triomphe brakes, where at least one was a standard (aka long) reach (needed for the rear wheel). I could not find a standard set in Victory (short reach pic below), the reason it turns out is they don't exist), so I bought a set of standard Triomphe. There was always something weird about one of the calipers but I installed them and they worked so I let it go.


I was now able to give a little for time to the weird Triomphe caliper. One thing that changed from Nuovo Record to C-Record was the brake adjuster Triomphe and Vicotry are of the C-Record era). The old style (Nuovo Record) was a divot on the top of the arm and a corresponding bump on the adjusting wheel. This was replaced with a system with no
divot or bump Above is a Victory without the divot and bump. Eventually Campagnolo went back to the divot and bump when C-Record was phased out). The above photo shows a Victory without the divot and bump and below is a NR with the divot and bump adjuster.


What is weird about this Triomphe is it has a bump and divot adjuster. At first I thought since Triomphe is a copy of Nuovo Record (Victory is Super record), someone must have graphed the left arm of a Nuovo Record caliper onto this Triomphe caliper, but after more research I discovered there are no NR or Record brake arms without Patent or Brev on them. I then discovered that indeed Campy did make a limited amount of Triomphe brakes with the divot and bump adjusters, so what I have is simply a mismatched pair. Below the brake on the left is the front with the common brake adjuster for Triomphe; right is the divot and bump





The brakes also came with mismatched pivot bolts, the standard adjuster with a rear recessed bolt and the divot and bump with an old style exposed bolt. This leads me to believe the divot and bump style was most likely an early style.

The calipers were sold as NOS from Bulgaria, so I guess it's the chance you take..

Shimano + Campagnolo Ergo = Shimergo

I have a 1999 Schwinn Peleton, which after a few years the Ultegra brifters (brake and shifter) started to get tired; meaning I sometimes had to "pump" the brifter to make it work. This apparently is common with Shimano shifters, especially the first 9 speed model (ST-5500/5501) , which is the model that came with my bike. The cause is two fold. First, Shimano shifters have a very light touch, which requires light (some may say weak) springs. Second the tolerances in Shimano brifters are very close; get a little grunge inside and it will slow down the workings. There are three remedies; the first is to spray the workings with a lubricant; the preferred make seems to be a silicone spray named LPS-2. The second is to try and disassemble the shifter and clean it out, but if you find a problem, your out of luck because Shimano sells no small parts for their brifters. The third remedy is to buy new brifiters. I decided the only reasonable remedy was the silicone spray. The bike was at the LBS at the time so I told them to do the job. Afterwards the shifters worked again, but I figured their days were numbered. The bike sat around for a while until I did the upgrades described above. Still the brifters needed to be replaced and I wasn't going back to Shimano.

I liked the looks and feel of the Campagnolo brifters, but I didn't have the money for a full conversion, plus Campy drivetrains are pretty restrictive. However, when I found the Shimergo web site, I knew I had the perfect solution. So what is a Shimergo? A Shimergo is a combination of a Shimano drivetrain and Campagnolo ErgoPower shifter. This website covers most the nuts and bolts on how to do it; Rear Shifting . For my bike all I would need is a set of 10 speed ErgoPower brifters. The compatibility issues between Campagnolo and Shimano is the rear cogs are further apart with the Campy cassettes. However as more cogs are added (ie a 9 speed to 10 speed) , the cogs are placed closer together to fit on the same size freehub body. This causes the cog spacing of a Campy 10 speed cogs to be more in line with the cog spacing of a Shimano 9 speed. Since the brifters determine the movements and indexing of the rear derailleur, a Campy 10 speed brifter would shift the nearly the same as a Shimnao 9 speed brifter.

Added to this swap is a re-routing of how the Shimano rear derailleur cable is attached, and you have a functioning 9 speed Campy brifter (the tenth shift is simply adjusted out with the high end stop) with a 9 speed Shimnao drivetrain.

The 10 speed shifters I decided to go with was a set of lightly use Daytona on ebay. The reason why I settled on the Daytona was #1 they were pre 2005 so I didn't have to deal with front indexing and #2, the Daytona name was a short lived, later changed to Centuar after Campy learned the name was a registered Trade Mark in the US.


To get ready in installing the new shifters I ordered some new Cinelli cork bar tape and a set of Campagnolo cables. Using the old bar tape is sometimes possible; especially if it is a dark color and isusually warpped opposite the original wrapping. I reused the original white bar tape until I received the second package of new tape (I'll explain later. The old tape is Cinelli white cork, so the bars looked a bit like a faded zebra.



Up to the Peleton, I had never worked on brifters and these were Shimano. I have wrapped numerous handlebars, including those with brake housings (aero) under the tape. until very recently, Shimano did not route their shifter housings under the handlebar tape, but from the beginning Campagnolo did. Many competition handlebars have grooves for the housings. Whwn I took off the bar tape on the Peleton, I was happy to see the handlebar had grooves in the back and front so it can accommodate both the housings. That is not to say that without the grooves you can not use the handlebars, it just looks a little cleaner.

It may not be obvious from this photo, but Campy has two routings for the shifter cables; one that would utilize a front groove if available and another where the shifter cable can share the same path as the brake.














After the placement of the brifters and taping down the cables, it time to wrap the bars with tape. I have always liked Cinelli cork tape. I had bought some Cinelli in gray and blue, but as I started wrapping the bar, it started tearing and eventually broke. I have never had this tape tear or break before so I feared the Cinelli tape quality had been compromised. Fortunately I tried another box of Cinelli tape and it was the quality I had grown to expect. This time I chose the Stars and Stripes (ie American Flag) cork tape.


Now that's handlebar tape! I have been warned however that the Cinelli printed tape tends to fade quickly; we shall see.

Building a Better Looking Vintage Super Record Derailleur

A good definition of form over function is the Vintage Super Record (1974-1987) Rear derailleur. The reason is the Super Record (SR) Rear Derailleur was nothing more than a tweaked Nuovo Record rear derailleur designed to utilize a 28T cog; over the Nuovo Record (NR) limit of 26t. This was done by re-working the outer cage. The top photo below is the outer cage of a NR and the lower the SR. The pulleys are the same distance apart, however the upper pivot has been moved closer to the pivot. This in affect lowers the pulleys so the guide pulley is in a lower position and can utilize a larger rear cog.

So if you don't count weight, the only performance advantage that this era SR rear derailleur is this the ability to utilize these two additional teeth. Other than that, the parallelogram is exactly the same except for the new top and bottom plates; but all the parts of a NR and SR are interchangeable, because except for the outer plate, that are the same. But that didn't stop Campagnolo from claiming the SR as a huge improvement over the NR. The new top plate was supposed to be some exotic material , not just aluminum and the black coating used on the parallelogram ends and background for the Camapgnolo script was something other than common anodizing anodized. The shifting was touted as being extrodinary, but in reality is was exactly the same as the NR. Of course it does have titanium pivot bolts, but besides knocking off a few grams, they do nothing to increase performance.

But that is not say that being able to use a bigger cog or Titanium bolts are not wanted, but I never got the the new top plate. It was supposed to be new age, but it did not fit the rest of the components that were still the 1966 design. When Campy finally did upgrade to the short lived C-Record, they looked nothing like the graphics on SR rear derailleur (nor did any of the other SR components, which still followed the NR looks and designs.

The first SR rear derailleur had a much more subdued look; pretty much a NR rear derailleur, only with the black parallelogram ends and instead of the "Campagnolo Nuovo Record" script on the top plate it said "Campagnolo Super Record".

















My vintage Specialized Allez has a NR and I would like to mount this 1st generation SR rear derailleur except for two reasons. The first is they are quite rare and command top dollar and second it would not be period correct. All the other parts are 1984/85 NR and SR. So my plan was to combine the NR and SR rear derailleurs to make a defacto SR rear derailleur that looks like a NR rear derailleur. I have done this before with Nuovo Gran Sport rear derailleur with very positive results; again all the parts for all three of these derailleurs re interchangeable. To gather the parts I would need a SR inner cage and titanium pivot bolts. A while back I found a wrecked SR rear derailleur (see above) that had the lower titanium pivot bolt; it also had the inner cage, but that is being used on another derailleur on another bike right now. It was missing the upper pivot hanger bolt, which is not uncommon. These have a strange history as it was thought by many that the titanium hanger bolt was flexy and easily broken. There was probably little truth behind this, however it was common for racers to switch out the titanium hanger bolt for a NR steel bolt, which makes this bolt harder to find. I did however find one NOS at a web store and bought ot for much more than I should have. But then I had put this plan on hold until I found another SR inner cage. My patience paid off when I found someone selling the NOS SR inner cage on ebay; now I can finally put it all together.

What first needs to be done, is remove the cages off my NR rear derailleur. This is done by unscrewing the lower pivot.


Next I switch the pulleys from the NR outer cage to the SR outer cage; many refer to this as the inner cage or inner cage plate. However Campy situates parts starting from the frame, so the cage that holds the pulleys are referred to the inner cage and this cage, because it's farther away from the frame is the outer cage.


Next I attach the SR cage and pulleys

Next I load the spring, screw in the holding pin, and insert titanium upper pivot.


And viola! A stealthy SR rear derailleur that fits with the other components and is period correct. Not only that, I can now use a 28T freewheel if the mood takes me..

Making New Components Work as Vintage

I really like vintage Campy components. I scour the ebay and other sources (craigslist is a non-sequitur in this area). Saying that, there are some components that are either too scarce and/or expensive to use on a regular basis. One of these are chainrings for my Nuovo Gran Sport (NGS) crankset; NGS chainrings in 144BCD often cost more than Nuovo Record. While I have some OEM chainrings,



I ride the bike a lot and don't want to wear them out. Origin8 have some since retro rings that come in 42T and 52T (they have a much larger selection of retro track (1/8) rings, but only these two in 3/32). I like the dull finish that is similar to NGS, the 42T is a standard 10 hole, but the 52T is also a 10 hole, which looks awful.


So I bought a set and went to work with a Dremel tool to turn the 10 hole into a 5 hole. Below is my new set with a Origin8 52T converted to a 5 hole.

Reloading a Vintage Campagnolo Brake Carrier

Currently I have a set of Campy Gran Sport brakes. I bought them for a bike project and it turned out 1) the reach was too short for the rear and 2) they had recessed pivot bolts and my frame needed standard pivot bolts. The recessed pivot bolt problem could have been dealt with, but the reach issue was a deal breaker; I needed another brake-set with longer arms. I am now left with a brake-set I can not use, which is prime ebay material.

The brakes-set sat on ebay for 2 weeks and nothing, not even a question. The brake-set was in very good condition with one glaring exception; the pads were shot. A set (4) of Campy pads cost about $35, which will eat away a good part of my profit (actually increase my loss), but it appeared it will be necessary to sell the brakes. Old style Campy pads are usually pretty easy to replace. First you need to pull out the old pads, this can usually be accomplished with a pair of pliers.

Once the pad is out, you simply slip the new brakes in from the open side (Campy carries hold on the pads from three sides or retainer walls. The rear is left open, which is not an issue as long as the open part of the carrier faces the rear or opposite tire rotation, so the rotation of the tire doesn't pull the pad out.

As I'm sure you noticed, I said "Old style Campy pads are usually pretty easy to replace." This is not true for Gran Sport carriers. The reason is, at the time Gran Sport was bottom of the line race components. Campy reduced the manufacturing costs of the Gran Sport brakes by less polish, a linkage vs cam brake release, the carriers are galvanized steel (not chromed), the lack of a wheel guide, and the retainer walls are on all four sides, meaning the pads are not meant to be removed and re-installed. Perhaps this was not a big deal from 1974 to 1984, but today these filled carriers are no where to be found. But even back in the old days, the less expensive option of replacing just the pads led to bending the rear pad retainer so a new pad could be inserted. Due to the poor grade of metal used to make the Gran Sport carriers, this retainer wall usually broke off when you tried to bend it back into place. Since the Nuovo Record brakes were already make without a rear retainer, it simply made sense to cut/grind it off.

I decided to grind the rear retainer off prior to removing the old pads; this gave me additional access to the pad when removing it. I pulled out the pads, primarily with pliers, but in a few cases the pad split is half, or started to, so I used a screwdriver to help remove the pad. Once the pad was out I was able to clean up the area where I cut/ground off the the rear retainer wall.After that it was an easy job to rub the pads with alcohol and slide them in; if you are doing this, make sure you remember to reinstall the brake retainer bolt before sliding in the pad. Also, some pads have different wiring on the them. The older pads have "CAMPAGNOLO"" on one side and "BREV. INTER." The pads brakes are usually positioned so CAMPGNOLO is on the top, meaning the pads will have to be installed, 2 with the open end facing forward and two facing back. If you need to remove a pad that you plan on reusing, best to pry it out with a screwdriver than pull it out with pliers. While a newly installed pad will usually pull right put, the pliers will leave jaw marks and their always the possibility that you may unknowingly split part of the pad, causing it to tear off at a later time.

After that I simply reinstalled the brake retainers and put them up on ebay for another try. Since there's really nothing else I can do, the brakes will now remain on ebay until they sell.

Edit: Well they finally sold a short time afterwards and I lost about $35 on the deal; but it was still money in my pocket vs nothing.