Robvolz 

Hey, sometimes you have to work with what you got laying around. There is a time to be a purist, and also a time when you just have to make do with what's available at 10PM.

Yesterday, as I ground a flat spot along a Shimano 105 bolt to make it fit into a campy brake set…..
And today I plan on adding a Shimano Crane long cage to a Campy record (pre-NR/SR) RD, I wondered what other fun hacks have people done out there.

I am more impressed by people's ingenuity to keep riding than waiting years to find that holy grail part.

Whatcha got?

Mr. 66

I did have a street find that had a duck tape rear wheel, no tire, I think it had socks or fabric inside the wrap of tape. Pure genius in motion.

bulgie 

You already mentioned the Crane cage on a Record mech, here's mine:


But the Frankensteinish, unholy bolting together of things that don't belong, isn't limited to the Crane cage. This Record mech also has the top knuckle of a Cambio Sport riveted on, replacing the original Record knuckle. That gives it a sprung top pivot, kinda like a Simplex. Vastly improves the range it can cover. Here's that mech (with the original Record pulley cage) shifting a 14-30 freewheel with a 21-tooth difference in front, two pics showing that it works without straining in all 15 gears:



With the Crane cage, I used a 34t freewheel (20-tooth spread in front, not maxed out):


I've also added the Sport sprung upper pivot to a Gran Sprt mech, the old bronze/steel one:

It works about the same as the Record except you can't easily bolt on a Crane cage.

I also increased the gear range possible on a Nuovo Record, by grafting on the upper knuckle of a Rally. This also uses a SR pulley cage, so it's a NR-SR-Rally hybrid. Easily shifts to the 31t freewheel in this pic, and not maxed out. (31 is just the largest cog you could get on a Regina Oro). BTW both upper and lower pivot bolts on this one are titanium, from Jim Merz.


Finally, here's a piece of a Suntour Cyclone inner cage plate, grafted onto a Duopar. This solves the problem where you can't pedal backwards or roll the bike backwards with a duopar, because the original inner cage plate didn't come up high enough to keep the chain from falling off the upper pulley. This cage pretty much cures that, and it lets you take the chain out of the cage without unbolting either pulley or breaking the chain, a feature Suntour introduced BITD. Not a huge plus, but handy sometimes... Ooh, and it made the mech lighter too, so important on a touring bike!!


I have lots more Frankenparts I could bore you with but that's enough for now!

Mark B

Robvolz 

mark, most impressive.
I can't remember the name for the nail-like parts that hold it all together, in German, 'hoffnagel" or horse shoe nail.

What is the special tool needed for removal and replacement. Lets start with where do you get replacement nails?

Picturing a black anodized rally knuckle on a super record RD.

That pivot is damn cool and solves the problem of having a cage dangle so low.

SJX426 

https://flic.kr/p/2nVJkWk

bulgie 

The first one I did was back in the '70s. The shop I worked at then (Bud's in Claremont CA) carried every Campy small part, including the pins and bushings for derailer parallelogram pivots, front and rear. The older NR had aluminum pins (later production changed to steel) and the pins were simply peened into place with a punch and anvil that had concave faces to match the look of the factory peening.

For the 3 Campy mechs in these pictures, the graft surgery was done by Jim Merz. Rather than trying to source replacement pins, he "just" makes his own on his CNC lathe! He said the original parts were made to loose tolerances, by his standards, so he made new ones with tighter tolerances "because he can".

There's a long tradition of building up Campy derailers from individual small parts as a cottage industry. Rumor has it, Campy factory employees would smuggle out small parts and make whole derailers at home to sell for extra cash. I never went there but I hear stories of a particular barber shop in Vicenza where such cobbled-together parts were sold under the table, leading such creations to be known generally as "barber shop parts".

This has led to derailers in circulation with parts that never should have been seen together on the same mech, like black-ano SR top and bottom knuckles riveted to a NR outer parallelogram plate. When you see a weirdo like that, it could be a factory mistake, prototype or what-have-you, but it might also be a barber-shop part that Campy never made.

Mark B

merziac

@bulgie

Mark, you really need a disclaimer for these sort of fantastic posts.

Mere mortals can't even think this sort of thing through, let alone make it happen.

I know plenty of talented, highly skilled fabricator/machinists that would still be reduced to tears attempting some of this.

bulgie 

Oh I should comment on that... I have been looking for a suitable SR "organ donor" to do that to for a long time. Ideally I'd want an SR with a broken or mangled top knuckle, but which is undamaged anywhere else. Hate to hack up a perfect SR mech for this, but the organ donor I'm looking for hasn't dropped into my lap yet. Anyone holding?

You can't just anodize a Rally top knuckle though. They aren't aluminum, they're Zamak, a zinc casting alloy, with chrome plating over that. Maybe you could paint or powder-coat a Rally knuckle to make it black, but the thickness of the coating might interefere with tolerances where it mates with the other parts.

The very last iteration of the Rally was a different mech, with an alu top knuckle (which could be black anodized), but they're rare and expensive and possibly not even interchangeable?

I got my Rally top knuckles from Campy as replacement parts, not by cutting up working derailers. (I still have one more in my Campy bin, waiting for the right organ donor.) I think they made a lot of Rally replacement top knuckles because they so frequently broke. The Zamak casting was a dumb idea, rather heavy and weak, with a sketchy design as well. That last mech that carried the name Rally fixed that problem, but it was too late to save the Rally's reputation for breaking.


"The Last Rally"

Mark B

zandoval 

Derailleur Hangar Modification...

https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...lded-puch.html

steelbikeguy

I've been hacking together my LED bike headlights since white LEDs first appeared (and some tinkering well before that). The first headlight was pretty horrific, but functional. As such, I have a lot of respect for folks who say "I can't buy one so I'll make one myself". With that in mind, I'd like to share some pages from the Rivendell Reader featuring the late Chuck Harris. Back in the 1960's, when touring gear wasn't easily obtained in the USA, Chuck took it upon himself to fabricate his own rear derailleur and even chainrings! To me, Chuck was the patron saint of coming up with solutions to a problem, regardless of how pretty it was.

The following two pages are an article in Rivendell Reader #5, written by Sheldon Brown, another of our patron saints...








Rivendell Reader #21 has two pages with pics of Chuck's bike. I'll just include one page, showing close-up's of the drivetrain...




Disclaimer: I've bought mirrors from Chuck, and chatted with him at the Horsey Hundred ride at Georgetown, Kentucky.

Steve in Peoria