Jorun

Hi there,

I'm quite new at riding and maintaining road bikes. I've bought an old ridley road bike about a year ago. I've enjoyed this bike a lot and I hope to still ride it for a long time.

However the bike I bought had some problems with the rear derailleur. The previous owner had crashed the bike and the rear derailleur was bent a little. I tried adjusting the derailleur so it would shift better, and that helped, but there is still some resistance in the gears in the derailleur. To improve my cycling experience, I'm currently looking into a new rear derailleur.

The bike has a campagnolo veloce 9 speed rear derailleur, with an 8 speed casette and campagnolo chorus 8 speed shifters. I can't however find a new or still working campa veloce 9 speed rear derailleur. My shifters, brakes, cassette and front derailleur are all still fine, so I'm not really looking for a completely new group set. However I have no idea which rear derailleurs would be compatible with my current setup. Are there any campa 10 or 11 speed derailleurs compatible? Does someone know where you could still buy 8 or 9 speed derailleurs?

Thanks in advance!

Yours sincerely,
Jorun

SJX426 

Jorun Welcome to the premier site for all C&V things!
Two issues are not clear that should be investigated. first is to make sure your derailleur hanger is not bent. I checked one of mine this last week and found it off and easy to bend back. Second, check that the RD is really bent and not the hanger.
Replacement 9V RD's can be found on the auction site. The prices will vary with the choice of level, Chorus vs Veloce.

We like to see pictures because so many of us are visual people and can detect other issues that may be present that you may not notice. To do that you can post pics in your gallery or post 10+ times and then paste directly into your message.

If you want someone's attention, you can type "@" followed by their ID.

Jorun

Hi there @SJX426;

Thank you for your quick response!

Since I'm not going to spam 10 messages just to be able to get my pictures here, in my gallery you can find two pictures of my rear derailleur. On the picture 'back side of derailleur' you can see bottom part is a little tilted in this direction: \ whilst the top part more in this direction: /. Its the top part that makes some noise and feels like there is some resistance. The top wheel has a little play in it. Do you think it can just be fixed with bending this?

If the pictures aren't clear enough, I'll try to make new ones.

Yours sincerely,

Jorun

SJX426 

The cage looks bent to me. I would remove it and flatten it out.

The hanger looks almost good. hard to tell because of the cameral angle. If you took a picture looking down the chain line, it might help. Put the chain on the smallest sprocket first.
Cage looks bent from here as well.
@Jorun

Jorun

Hi there SJX426 ,

Thanks again for your quick response.
I've added 3 more pictures in my gallery, is it more clear like that?

How would you flatten the cage out?

Yours sincerely,
Jorun

dunrobin

I had the same problem with a used chorus derailleur I picked up with a full drive train set that otherwise looked mint. I took apart the cage and used 2 large adjustable wrenchs to straighten it out. Works ok now...good luck.

Dave Mayer

From the pics it appears that you have a second-generation 9-speed derailleur. That is, it dates from 2001 to 2014, and is designed to work with the version 2 Campy shifters with the rounded hoods. This derailleur is strictly not compatible with your 8-speed shifters, which date prior to 2001. It will sort of work, but it will likely be fussy to set up and keep indexing correctly.

According to my standards, shifting should be exact, precise, quiet and instant. No noise, no clattering, no mis-shifts, undershifts, overshifts, etc. Properly set up, Campagnolo 8-speed Ergopower can produce shifting as well as any mechanical shifting ever made, right up to current.

So you need one of the older derailleurs from 1992 to 2000. Fortunately, these are easy to find on Fleabay: 5 minutes of searching and $50.

Given all of your drivetrain is at least 15 years old, perfect shifting is prefaced on having a fresh chain, cassette and cables/housing. Assuming the previous owner actually rode the bike, this means that the chain should have been replaced at least 20 times, the cables and housings about the same. And he or she would have ground through 3 plus cassettes and 2 sets of chainrings. The right Ergopower shifter should have had its G-springs replaced at least 3 times, as well as the likely replacement of the (inevitably cracked) spring carrier. Plus 3 or so replacements of the shifter hoods.

Jorun

Quote:

This derailleur is strictly not compatible with your 8-speed shifters, which date prior to 2001. It will sort of work, but it will likely be fussy to set up and keep indexing correctly.

I already had the feeling it was not completely compatible. I've tried setting it up properly a few times, but it does have problems gearing correctly in either the lower range or higher range of gears from time to time.I do mostly use my bike on flat terrain, so my lower gears aren't used that often, so therefore it wasn't my biggest concern yet.

The previous owner only used his bike a few times a year, but did maintain his bike pretty good. I'm not entirely sure what components he replaced. I did buy the bike for a very low price and most of it seemed to still work decently for an entry bike to road racing.

Dave Mayer , you mean a veloce 8 speed or chorus 8 speed derailleur? Didn't know you could still find those easily. I'll take a look at it tomorrow. Thank you!

Dave Mayer

Any Campy derailleur from 1992 to 2000. Mirage, Veloce, Athena, Daytona, Record, Chorus, whatever. 8-speeds and early 9-speed units. They have the same shape, dimensions and are cross-compatible.

verktyg 

Jorun In the top photo it looks like the derailleur hanger is bent in a little at the bottom. It's not parallel to the small sprocket. Could be camera distortion or could be bent.

If it is bent, those replaceable derailleur hanger frames need to be carefully realigned so as not to damage anything. For that operation, I'd recommend taking it to a shop where there is someone with experience doing those repairs - not a hammer mechanic!

The upper pulleys on indexing derailleurs have .5mm to 1mm side to side float. This allows the pulley to self center on the sprocket.

In most cases with indexing, it's the shifters that control the amount of travel the derailleur moves. So I can say from experience that 7, 8 and 9 speed RDs work on cassettes up to 9 speeds and freewheels up to 7 speeds.

Here's a Campy Mirage 9 speed RD on my 1990 Bianchi Mondiale with an 8 speed Shimano cassette. It shifts smooth silk with non indexing Campy Doppler Retrofriction levers - as good as or better than indexing levers.




Same type of setup on my DeRosa except a later model Campy Veloce 9 speed RD and a Campy 8 speed cassette. Campy Doppler levers too.




I'm not an expert on later model Campy RDs but they can be fussy...


verktyg

Jorun

Yes it was indeed bent a little. I've dissasembled my derailleur and bent the part back a little. It's still not entirely straight, but the ratteling of my chain against it is gone for now.
I'm currently saving up for another bike, but that will probably be something for next year. So I hope it holds for another year with it's current parts.
Thank you all!

Choke 

I posted this in another thread recently. gfk_velo replied, so you should read that as well. He (they?) is the UK Campy service center.

Oldpotatoe, former owner of Vecchio's in Boulder and one of the foremost Campy gurus, had this to say on another forum: "I use 2010 Campagnolo rear derailleurs(10s) as replacement rear derailleurs for all Campagnolo shifting systems from the late 80s thru present. The 'pre/post 2001' stuff in actual practice means nada".

So to make it simple, a 10sp Campy RD will work with your 8sp setup.

Jorun

So you're saying it's compatible with every new 10 speed campa derailleur?

Dave Mayer

Sigh... As I indicated in my earlier post, mixing your shifters with later generation derailleurs will sort of work. And it also depends on your definition of 'works'; some of my riding pals are oblivious to anything mechanical, and just assume the incessant random clattering coming from the rear of their bikes is normal.

In 2001, Campagnolo modified the geometry of their derailleurs so as to make them travel a greater distance for every increment of cable pull. Why? Who knows. I won't get into the math. Most bike shop mechanics do not understand the basic concepts of indexed shifting: that it depends on matching the derailleur, the shifters and the cog spacing. All 3 have to match.

So if you were to use a 10-speed era derailleur with your shifters, it would overshift by 0.25mm per cog. That is, the derailleur would travel 1/4 of a mm per click too far. So if you set up the indexing in the center of the cassette, it should work fine across the cassette. I've done it. But at the extremes of the cassette, you start getting more cumulative error, which may cause rough and inaccurate shifting.

But, why accept this when you can scoop up a compatible (8 and early 9-speed) derailleur off of Ebay in minutes, and have it delivered to your door. And it will be cheaper than a 10-speed unit, and you won't run the risk of your (wider) 8-speed chain not fitting well within the narrower confines of a 10-speed jockey wheel cage?

BTW: verktyg has presented 2 pics of older Campy derailleurs: 8 and early 9-speeds. Both of these would be 100% compatible with your drivetrain.

Choke 

Yes. Or rather Old Potatoe, aka Peter Chisholm is. And if anyone would know, he would. There's a little background on him in this article about one of his bikes.