MaybeHippolyteA

Question: Will a early 1980's Campy Nuovo Record RD w/ Simplex friction shifters work with a 8 speed cassette? Thinking 13-25t

bikemig 

You likely want to post this in the C&V forum where some folks likely have experience trying set ups like this. My guess is yes but a lot depends on how much throw those shifters have and so it's only a guess.

Leinster

I've used 80's 6-speed 105 RD and dt shifters with a 9-speed 12-25 cassette and it worked just fine. The rear shifter moves a bit further back to get into 1st gear, but the individual shifts worked smooth.

Others on here have told me that using a 9-speed chain is ideal with 8-speed cassettes, and so when I did that on a different build I found it to be perfect.

brooklyn_bike

yes it'll work. you might find the shift lever pull angle to be a bit further back than usual. i have almost the same setup on a colnago : super record rear derailleur / simplex retrofriction shifters / 7 speed freewheel

cb400bill

Thread moved from General Cycling to Classic & Vintage.

Chubby715

It shouldn't be a problem. I have a Super Record RD circa 1982 and have run a 28 tooth rear cog before.

SurferRosa

Short cage rear derailleurs like NR can struggle with a chainring size difference more than 10t up front.

52/42t is usually fine. 52/39t can pose problems when using wide-range cogsets.

Kabuki12

I run a 53/41 chain ring set up with a 28 low cog with a NR without any difficulty. It works better with my 82 Super Record set up but both work.(same gears). Of course I run six speed FW’s.

John E

Standard six (5-speed lateral spacing, 126mm OLD) or "ultra" six (7-speed lateral spacing, 128mm OLD)? Most derailleurs that work with a standard 6 can handle a 7-speed.

repechage

Might depend on chainring spread in teeth.
as the Nuovo Record swings in, it swings up.
the very late super Record with the silk screened branding ( black background)
will have an easier time.

Campagnolo also made C Record retrofriction shifters with a bigger take up sheave- less overall shifter travel.

Kabuki12

I have not measured the drop out spacing . One is a 1977 Colnago Super , the other is a 1982 Medici Pro Strada. I might add that I move the axel stop screws back to allow the axel to slide further back in the drop out. This keeps the jockey wheel cage from coming into contact with the 28t cog.

repechage

the question though was for an 8 speed set of cogs in back.

conspiratemus1

Here’s my solution:


Shifter with inner-most sprocket engaged.


Note amber 9-sp resin spacers between 8-sp sprockets and aluminum spacer inboard of the whole stack. Morning winter sun in the kitchen.


An 8-speed Campagnolo cassette is so fat that friction shifters (designed for narrower freewheels) have to be pulled all the way back to be parallel to the downtube to get the derailer to move over far enough to catch the inner-most sprocket. A very nice kludge is to replace the 8-sp spacers of your cassette with 9-sp spacers. AFAIK, all Campag 8-sp cassettes had individual sprockets not riveted onto a carrier, so like Veloce 9-sp, which is where these spacers came from. The smallest sprocket will have 8-sp spacing because it has its own spacer but this won’t matter for friction.

The shifter is a (used) 8-sp Dura-Ace indexer set to the friction option (obviously.). With the original 8-sp spacers in the cassette, the lever throw is too long for convenient shifting but the 9s are nice. I actually prefer the finer finger movements to nail the gears with the narrower spacing.

Use a 9-sp. chain — Campag here.

Works really well.

Note my derailer is a proper cassette-era mech. I don’t know if an NR will swing in far enough, depends on your limit screw travel.

repechage

conspiratemus1, might swing in but will also swing UP, and that will be the issue.

Road Fan

There are 3 types of constraint in play here.

One is the lateral travel that the paralellogram structure is capable of. Do the pivots have some blockage? Are the limit screws opened up to handle the width of an 8 (same as the width of a 9, 10, or 11)? The rear mech control (right-hand DT shifter) plays a role in terms of whether the lever can be pulled over far enough to move the rear mech sideways far enough to align all the rear sprockets. Available lateral travel is also a point in consideration of front derailleurs.

Second is the ability for the jockey wheel to clear the big rear sprocket. Except for gadgets like a Wolftooth or somehow finagling a longer rear derailleur tang, this is based on the physical geometry of the frame-as-built dropout, the derailleur parallelogram design, and the length, offset, and range of rotation of the chain cage, with consideration of the rotated position of the rear cage. The diameter of the jockey and guide wheels may have an influence as well. A few past designs have allowed the cage to rise and fall to accommodate a larger range of rear sprocket sizes

Third is the chain wrap range, traditionally called "capacity." This is how much chain length can be compensated as the gear is shifted from the small-small up through the big-big position. Many derailleurs have such a spec published. For some manufacturers and derailleur models it seems to be a hard limit and for others it seems you can exceed it significantly. As with the second constraint, the performance can be affected by the available motion of the top pivot of the derailleur, such as if it is sprung.

conspiratemus1

Yah. The last pair I saw on eBay sold at BIN for something like $284.

conspiratemus1

The OP is looking at a cassette with largest sprocket 25 teeth, so he should be OK on those range and capacity issues.
Big issue is if the cage has to swing in so far it starts swinging up, yes. Narrowing the cassette should help. Or just live with 7 of 8 narrowly spaced sprockets. Depends on how badly he wants to use the NR mech. As we all know they look better and last longer than they shift.