The Heater

Hi, folks:

I am new to this forum. Older bicycler, not a geek, just a recreational rider. My mechanical knowledge is restoring cars. Taking them completely apart, rebuilding everything, fabricating metal, welding, refinishing metal and plastic, etc., rebuilding components, or finding NOS parts or rebuilding used parts. And building motorcycles. I don't know much about buying parts for bicycles, need a little help, a little at a time.

I have a shop helping me rebuild an older road bike. We are limited to a 7 or 8 speed freewheel due to rear bracket width. May be able to use a triple crank set if the granny gear clears the frame. I have a Phil Woods bottom bracket on the bike, and I am the original owner, purchasing it back in 1977. Installed the Phil Woods BB probably before 1980. It has an ISO square taper spindle. I want to install as much Campagnolo stuff on it as I can.

I have fun looking for parts for projects like this. I just haven't tackled it with a bicycle.

1) What I need to know is whether a Campagnolo rear derailleur has to be a certain model to work with a 7 speed freewheel or an 8 speed freewheel? I prefer to find one that works with either. I want to pick up a nice one or maybe a few, and rebuild and refinish them if needed, to use on this bike. I have fun rebuilding small stuff like this. I don't see a lot of NOS in this category on eBay, and used is OK if it is in good to excellent condition.

2) I also want to know if the front derailleur needs to be a certain model (again, Campy) to work with a triple versus a double crank set?

Thanks, Mike

CliffordK

Welcome to the forum Mike,

The first question is whether you are using (or plan to use) Friction Shifters or indexed shifters (brifters).

If you use friction shifters, then they will accept a wide variety of derailleurs. I've been using an Ultegra rear derailleur with my old Campy Shifters for years. It takes about 100% of the lever movement to get the necessary range, but otherwise it works fine.

If you choose to go with indexed shifters such as brifters (Campy Ergopower) levers, then you will have to be much more careful with the derailleur compatibility.

Mid production for the 9s derailleurs there was a change in cable pull, so 8s and early 9s derailleurs are generally compatible. And, then the late 9s and 10s derailleurs are generally compatible. There are a few other configurations that work well too.

See the charts on shift ratios and cable pulls.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bicycl...ing_Dimensions

At least with Shimano there is a jump between 7s and 8s freewheel/cassette width. Then, 8s, 9s, and 10s are all very similar in width, so there would be no significant benefit to choose 8s over 9s or 10s.

I successfully use an off-center rim, hubs/dropouts spaced at 126mm, and a 9s cassette on my bike, and ancient friction shifters, with the original Campy Strada crankset, and nuovo record front derailleur.

Personally I prefer the flexibility of long-cage derailleurs.

Andrew R Stewart 

Clifford give good advice but here's a few more details. Take care about spoke/cog clearances WRT the der's cage/pulley dimensions. The pulleys/cages of the Campy NR era ders are pretty thick and can get real close to the spokes when in the largest cog. Freewheels trying to squeeze more cogs into the same old space (as 6 cog ones) tend to have the large cog close to the spokes too. Freewheel hubs have a lot of drive side axle extension beyond the bearing (compared to the other end) and are known to be axle bend/break prone. Trying to fit more cogged freewheels onto a hub often means adding more drive side axle spacers, increasing this axle stress concern. I would also suggest a triple crank if possible. Campy has made a few versions over the years. The "classic" is a NR which has been drilled to add an inner ring. The factory versions are not common and the replacement inner ring even less so. But home made ones are out there (two in my basement) and usually allow a smaller inner ring of more common availability. The BB spindle length will need to be about 5mm longer on the drive side then a double takes, everything else being equal. But different eras of cranks tend to have the square hole in different locations WRT the rings. So a newer triple might take a shorter spindle length then an older triple version does. As to the ft der compatibility- mounting fit comes first. Clamping band diameter or braze on. Then cage size. A triple specific der usually has a longer cage to clear the chain's lower run to the smaller inner ring and often has a deeper inner plate shape. But depending on the shifting technique, the ring's sizes, the rings having (or not) lift pins and ramps there is a pretty wide range of practical compatibility (or not). Many riders have used double intended ders with triples without issues. Andy.

Homebrew01

You may be able to spread the rear dropouts for a 130mm hub if you want more options. Thousands of older bikes have been converted to modern drivetrains.

I have 2 old Cannondales and 1 steel frame using 130mm wheels.

alcjphil

If the OP can already fit a wheel with an 8 speed freewheel, 9,10,or 11 speed wheels will also fit. The dropout spacing has not changed since 8 speed was introduced. What has to be determined is compatibility of shifters to derailleurs. Unless you use friction shifters you have to use shifters that match the derailleurs. With 8 speed Campagnolo derailleurs becoming rare along with the shifters and parts no longer available, a 10 speed setup might work far better, shifters and derailleurs are still being produced. As for the front derailleur, one that is specifically designed for a standard double will not work very well for a triple, but one made for a compact will work quite well

The Heater

I measured, and the tech measured, the rear drop out spacing. It is 126 mm. He said spreading the frame to get a larger dropout space was a bad idea, he felt it may affect the rest of the frame.

I did do research prior to posting this thread and did learn that the older Campy derailleurs like an 8 speed would have to use a friction shifter. This is something I have to discuss with the tech who is doing some of the work and consulting me on this project. I have a bad back and am putting straight bars with trigger shifters on the bike so I don't have to be bent over on the bike. The tech said it could be done, but I am wondering how that can happen if I use an 8 speed Campy derailleur.

How new would I have to go to get a Campy rear derailleur that works with indexed shifters? And would that mean I have to use a cassette? Because the initial plan is to get replacement 27 inch wheels and then maybe down the road get more expensive custom built 700 wheels. The concern we have is the compatibility of brakes. If I go to a 700 wheel, the brakes have to be able to reach the rim. But I can post that query in a different thread. The upshot of this comment references the rear wheel and use of a freewheel because it is a 27 inch wheel. This being the case, I am back to using an older derailleur, I assume, and I am not sure how I can use trigger shifters then with that set up.

Jeff Wills

That is absolute horse hockey. Take your project to a real mechanic, one familiar with this era bike and components. There's a few in and around the Puget Sound area.

Homebrew01

Yup, as I said, thousands of 126mm bikes have been upgraded to use 130mm wheels. A steel frame can be permanently "cold set" (aka bent wider) to 130mm. Or as with an aluminum frame that should not be permanently bent wider, you can just nudge the dropouts wider a bit each time you insert the rear wheel. Really not a big deal.

C&V forum has a 125+ page thread of members showing their converted bikes. It's a great option to consider if you like your frame.

Or consider buying a flatbar road bike, or hybrid with road tires. All kinds of choices. Is your current bike worth the time & expense of converting?

I can't help much on Campy compatibility with flat bar shifters. As much as I like Campy road groups, you might be painting yourself into a corner if you insist on Campy with flat bar trigger shifters.

alcjphil

All 8 speed road wheels are spaced to 130mm, which is only 4 mm wider than your frame spacing. If your frame is steel, it is a small matter to respace your frame to the wider standard. By the time Campagnolo introduced 8 speed, all their shifters were indexed. It will probably be almost impossible to find trigger shifters to work with an 8 speed Campagnolo setup. You would probably have to use friction shifters. If you later switch to 700c wheels, the difference in the radius is only 4 mm. If your current brake pads can be adjusted downward by 4 mm, your brakes will work with 700c wheels. As previously stated, 8,9,10, and 11 speed setups use the same rear dropout spacing. If you can install an 8 speed setup, you can also use 9,10, or 11 speeds

gfk_velo

Hello and Welcome to the Forum.

This may comee under the category of "not news" if you have experience in restoring old cars but before I even started down the avenue of finding parts, I'd blast the paint off the frame and see if you have a frame or a collander underneath!

We get involved with a lot of frame renovation through Longstaff Cycles, a business we have a close association with - they are our landlords and I do some worth with them from time to time in this area (very "on trend" in the UK at present) and as framebuilder ourselves on that side of the business, our first advice to any customer looking to do anything on a 20, 30, 40 year old steel frame is - have a proper look under the paint and see what's going on there, before you commit time and money to going any further.

Steel tubes will often corrode from the inside, out - and if they were not fully treated with Waxoyl or similar and if that wasn't done with some degree of regularity through the frame's life, you may find that you have tubes that are in places less-than-paper thin (many lightweight steel tubes only start with a wall thickness of 0.5 mm ... Reynolds 753 is down to 0.3 mm in the centre of the top tube) or even rusted right through - so before we make any promises on a reno job, we bead-blast the frame first, paying most attention to the tube condition around the lower head lug to gear lever boss, bottom bracket and fork crown / steerer column areas. These are all favourite zones for problems.

Once we are happy with the frame and only then, do we get stuck into the question of equipment.

The idea of re-spacing the back end to 130 mm similarly has to be treated with a lot of caution - some frame designs just don't suit it. Those with shot-in stays and a consequently shorter brake bridge are generally less amenable to it than those with seat stays attached to or "wrapping around" the seat lug.

In a good number of cases it's best done on older frames by having the brake and chainstay bridges sweated out, the rear end cold set, then new (longer and with reinforcement plates) bridges silver-soldered in. You can sometimes get away without - most often if the tubes are fairly new - but I'd be careful about cold-setting an older frame with the bridges in, as they form natural points of failure for a tube whose strength may already be compromised by corrosion and the heat applied in the fitting of the original bridges (hence silver solder and the re-inforcing plates).

Don't worry too much about tales of spindle breakage - by far and away the biggest cause of that was rear dropouts mis-aligned combined with a long unsupported length of rear axle - but this is actually true in many cassette hub designs today (although not in Shimano's case) but improvements in dropout rigidity but more specifically, dropout alignment in production frames have largely relegated axle breakage to the past ... and if you are having the back end reworked and the rework is being done by a competent tech / framebuilder, that should not be a big problem as the rear dropouts should be aligned as part of the work undertaken.

Given that the frame was built for 27" and finding 27" rims of any quality now is close to impossible (even back in the day, the "good" ones were not very good by modern standards), I'd look at the possibilities of going straight to 700cs and running cantiler brakes - you'll need bosses brazing / solering onto the seatstays and fork blades to take the cantis but otherwise, if you try and stick with caliper brakes you run into a minefield of frame clearance and if you try to just change the forks, potentially geometry-based problems. If the frame was built with typically generous clearances for 27 x 1 1/4 tyres and guards (fenders), caliper brakes that will reach a 700c are going to be hard to find and floppy as hell - Wenmann 630s or something like that, in sidepull, or perhaps a centre-pull - but it's basic mechanics ... make the brake arch that deep and the amount of leverage the blocks put on the caliper in both axial and circumferential planes is going to give you spongy, noisy and (again by modern standards) ineffective brakes.

Hope that helps you initially ... component-wise, what you do or don't do depends on these areas so it may be best to gather that info as a next step, rather than an initial step.

If I'm telling you things you already know, apologies but maybe it'll assist someone else doing a Google search with the same intentions as yourself!

Happy New Year!

Graeme
Velotech Cycling Ltd

Ronsonic 

It's up to you whether you want to stay with 7s or go with more gears / more modern hardware. But don't base that decision on what this guy said. Really, spreading frames is not that big a deal. In fact frames are generally cold set like this for spacing and alignment after being brazed together, it's a natural part of the process. One of the advantages of steel is that it lends itself to such correction. I myself have an old 7s bike I'm rebuilding that's going to stay that way, but not because it's difficult or dangerous to change, but more for sentimental reasons.

ICYDK, the guy I'm linking you to here was encyclopedic in his knowledge of bicycles, maintenance and use and a true guru in educating others in the craft. Bicycle Frame/Hub Spacing

In a world where appeal to authority is the weakest of arguments, Sheldon is one of the few whom none will fault.

Dave Mayer

I have done this upgrade over 10 times: taking an older road bike and adding indexed Campagnolo shifting.

Here are my recommendations:
Don’t bother spreading the stays. I don’t know what this would accomplish except perhaps allowing you to add another cog. I have so many road bikes that I’ve lost count, including some recent carbon and titanium bling, but most of my riding is still done on 7-speed systems. Most recent 8+ speed cogsets include useless 11 and 12 tooth cogs, so these do not add to the effective number of ‘speeds’. Going to a 10 or 11 speed solution will be a bottomless money pit, and newer Campy shifters are not any smoother or faster shifting than 20-year old Ergopower shifters. Yes, I have multiple versions of every generation of Campagnolo shifters made over the last 20 years. So I can attest that by 1993 or so, Campy completely had their act together.

And don’t go to flat bars. You say you don’t want to be hunched over, but having a more upright riding position CAN be accomplished with road bars. You need a taller stem, or one with rise, or both. Flat bars feel OK until you hit mile 10, but after this, the lack of hand position diversity will eventually kill your hands and wrists.

Get some 8-speed era Campagnolo Ergopower shifters (not Avanti). And a Campy rear derailleur from years 1992-2000. On Ebay you’ll find dozens of each on sale at any time. The various models are cross-compatible. Used Athena is a bargain in this vintage. Budget $200 max for the shifters and derailleurs.

For the freewheel, use the excellent Shimano tz-21 7-speed freewheel, and Shimano’s super smooth shifting IG-51 7/8 speed chain. Less than $15 each. You can pay an infinite amount for vintage chains and freewheels, but nothing vintage will work as well as these components.

You’ll also need some downtube housing terminators. Say $15 for the excellent Shimano Dura-Ace terminators.The complete retrofit would take me a couple of hours. If this shifters need to be overhauled, add another hour.

Finally, don’t forget to adjust the cable stops on the rear derailleur to lock out the 8th ‘click’ and the derailleur landing in the spokes.

Oh, and the front derailleur really doesn’t matter. The older Campy front shifters were not indexed, and so will work with any useful front derailleur.

Homebrew01

Campy makes a 10 speed cassette starting with 13 through 29, so gives a decent range of usable gears. I agree that 11 tooth cogs are a waste of space for most riders.

The Heater

Hi, Dave:

Thank you for patienly explaining precisely what I need to know. I agree with your approach. The objective is to upgrade without frame modifications and without creating more problems by purchasing a nice Campy component that won't work with the crankset or freewheel. I want to have some enjoyment hunting for the right Campagnolo parts for a basic road bike that is ergonomic for me.

Your advice about flat versus road bars is appreciated and well worded. I'll have to consider that suggestion. It might make it easier to find bar mount shifters and brake levers that would work with the vintage of the components I will need to buy.

I want to also encourage any other suggestions from forum members. Thanks also to A dy, Clifford and Homebrew. You've all made it abundantly clear that I need more education for my project, which is why I joined this forum.

CliffordK

As far as the flatbar conversion. Dad put flat bars on his old Torpado years ago. I believe he just left the original downtube shifters (and original 5x2), and put the new bars and brakes on the bike. The conversion was easy to do, and worked well. Shifting wasn't a problem. Mom's bike, also with upright bars uses stem shifters. Indexing isn't necessary, at least for 9s.

You'll have headaches trying to mach Shimano compatible trigger shifters with a Campagnolo derailleur. There may be a few compatible combinations. But, it will still be a hassle to configure.

There is a ratio converter called JTEK Shiftmate that might help. I believe still available in the UK.

I did bump into these.
Campagnolo Veloce Flatbar Ergopower 2/3x10 - Bike24
https://www.raceviewcycles.com/Campa...n&currency=USD

It looks like they are out of stock in a few locations, so it may be a get it while they're hot item.

It would probably mean upgrading everything to 10s. Essentially rebuilding the whole bike.

Going Shimano compatible would be much easier to support.

The Heater

It sounds like staying with downtube friction shifters is my best option if I want to fit the bike with a 7 or 8 speed Campagnolo set up. I have considered just settling for Shimano coversion and getting the use of indexed shifters. Campy seems to have been slower to get on the indexed shifter production bandwagon. I really would like to try a flat bar on the bike, for the sake of my back.

NukeouT

1. I recommend you use a downtube cable stop to convert from downtubes to barends for safety and ease of mind. +1 for SunTour over Campagnolo if youre going friction because they are easier to set up and maintain.

2. Highly recommend installing cross-brake levers on the same brakelines to have multiple braking positions. You can get them cheap and they are also hella easy to set up.

3. Have heard that one ought to stay away from older Campagnolo derailleurs as they use a proprietary gauge cable that requires salvage and/or hunting for NOS cable auctions on eBay. Either way 7-8 speed slanted parallelogram derailleurs will shift better and more reliably due to the paradime improvement in engineering over straight 'classic' ones everyone values so much.

CafeVelo

What if you set the bike up with mustache bars and retroshift, then picked up a c-record era groupset with syncro II (NOT syncro 1 with a friction/index toggle) and mounted the shifters to the retroshift bosses? Sounds most ideal to me, since even though you could put ergo levers on a mustache bar it would be weird to use. I suppose you could track down a pair of bar ends, but that may be harder than a c-record group in good shape.

The Heater

Hi, NukeouT:

I was told about the cable diameter differences on some models of Campy derailleurs. I have made a bid on a Centaur 8 speed long cage derailleur and will hope to get this one. It is the model my mechanic specified he can make work with the other items he wants to install on the bike and make a straight bar with trigger shifters work as well. I bought a Campy 980 front derailleur, NOS, and we will see if it can work with a triple chainring crank on this frame. If not the seller will allow me to return it, but it will "probably work" according to my mechanic.

I have been looking at some 8 speed Record derailleurs, as there are a lot for sale on eBay. I am good at mechanical rebuilding, and metal refinishing, so I could get a used unit that is gently used and put it in new condition, replacing wheels if needed, and keep this as a spare to use in the future. I don't have enough information about what issues I will have to deal with if I buy a Record derailleur, so any help on that would be appreciated. I may pick one up along with a 5 speed Campy derailleur in case I decide to put the bike back in original condition with the 5 speed freewheel on the back. The OEM derailleur is a Huret, which I have.

Tourist in MSN

In the photos I have a bike (1961 or maybe 1962) with a steel frame, 120mm dropout spacing.

I shoved a 126mm wheel in. Not a problem. I tried to spread the frame wider, but did not want to risk damage, thus the frame is still 120mm.

Note the 1980s vintage Campy rear derailleur. It works just fine with a 6 speed cluster.

And the modern (10 or 12 year old) Campy triple (52/42/30).

I am using the original 1961 Campy front derailleur, and it is just barely usable with the triple. In the past few weeks I have been setting up another bike with the same specification Campy triple and have had trouble getting some of my old Campy front derailleurs to work, finally gave up. Right now I have an FSA front derailleur on the newer bike I am setting up, gave up on trying to fit Campy front derailleurs. The derailleur cage on the old 1961 one goes out far enough but just barely, if my bottom bracket spindle was just a hair longer that derailleur would not work.

And using the original 1961 friction shifters.

Important notes on the drive train. The Campy derailleur I am using is rated for 26 teeth capacity. I am using a front crankset with a range of 52 to 30, that is a difference of 22 teeth. On the back I am running a 13 to 21 tooth six speed cluster. That is a range of 8 teeth. Sum the 22 and 8 and I get 30 teeth which exceeds the 26 rating. When I use the 30 tooth chainring, I can use the 21, 19 or 17 tooth rear cogs, but the derailleur cage does not have the capacity to take up enough chain to be able to use the 15, 14 or 13 tooth cogs when I use that 30 tooth granny gear. My point here is that if you try to use a vintage rear derailleur with a triple, you may find you are limited to the range of your rear cluster. I have no clue about newer Campy stuff derailleurs. I do not have any desire to change rear derailleurs (the one in the photo I bought new in the 1980s), but there may be others that have more capacity.



I put on clipless pedals, a modern threadless stem and brake levers on the bike, so I hope any purists out there are not too offended. I kept the old Mafacs but use different pads.

The Heater

Well, what's the trick to figuring out if a derailleur that says it is "X" speeds will work with a rear cluster that is "X + ___(fill in the number)" speeds? Or is there any way to cheat on that? I have been just looking to match the speed derailleur to the speed of the freewheel. I see some listings on eBay where the seller claims the derailleur will work on more speeds, such as a 7 speed that "works fine with 8 or 9 speed rear".

My mechanic knows what is going to work if he puts on a specific triple crank set. We have agreed that we will only do a triple if it absolutely works with no issues with the rest of the bike.

According to what you are describing, when a derailleur is listed as working with "26 tooth max" (or some other value), I have to do some math on this. What is the Algabraic formula?

Tourist in MSN

If you use a friction shifter, the number of speeds that a derailleur is rated for is less important. An 8 or 9 or more derailleur will be able to move in and out farther than a 5 or 6 or 7 speed deraileur, but I do not think that is too critical. Check with your mechanic if you need to know more on that.

Rear derailleurs can be rated two ways, my derailleur was rated at 26 teeth and I could not find out which way it was rated.

One is the biggest sprocket they can handle. I have used a cluster with a 26 tooth sprocket on that derailleur before, it was pretty close to what I would consider the limit.

The other way to rate the derailleur is chain take up capacity, that is the total difference in teeth. See my example, I described the 52-30 = 22, cluster range of 13-21 = 8, take that sum 22 + 8 = 30 teeth.

The Campy derailleur I am using was rated as 26 teeth and they did not say which of the two ratings (biggest sprocket or cage take up capacity) that was. But I think in my case, both of those capacities are the same at 26.

If you want to use a triple, I think you need to look for a pretty big cage so you have more take up capacity.

NukeouT

I recommend maxing out whatever range you can shove in the rear as you're already doing. There will literally be no reason to go back down in speeds. You will be buying a replacement freewheel/cassette with the same amount of speeds. Better donate obsolete stuff like that away to some co-op where they might be working on a bike that maxes out at 5sp.

Vintage stuff is great because its reliable and cheap, but I personally dont see the point in riding an 'all original' bike with sub-standard components when you can take advantage of modern advancements in engineering.

Sounds like you've got most things sorted out and it will come together like a wonderful build. I cant help you much with derailleur-bike compatibility at this time because I am having my team focus on other Sprocket app features atm