tkamd73 

Well seeing how this is the CV forum I’ll say it, the original Campagnolo SR/NR components on my 77 TX900 still work great, after all these years.
Tim

gfk_velo

Potenza and Athena levers are not inter-compatibe.
Different cable pull to derailleur movement ratio.

gfk_velo

It's not necessarily quite that simple.

Chorus Ergos work fine with older version (2009-2011) Athena RDs.

More recent Athena RDs don't work as well with CH, RE and SR Ergos, especially in cases with more complicated cable runs.
The earlier Athena levers were UltraShift and the RD return springs were designed to correctly drive the internal, which need >1kg of "return pull" on the cable.

Later RDs used a reduced strength spring, to work correctly with the PowerShift levers - around 850-900g.
Mixing the RDs with stronger springs with PowerShift levers can lead to early failure of the lever.

You can "get away with" the Powershift-compatible RDs with CH, RE and SR Ergos if you have simple cable runs and are careful with set-up.
In a fully compatible Campag assembly, with new parts, from the "perfect" sweet spot for cable tension, there is an approximate 1/2 turn of tolerance in either direction which will still give an acceptable shift. In a mimatched situation, that tolerance falls to more like 1/4 turn each way, so the initial set up is more fussy and the accuracy of the setting drifts with wear and tear much more quickly.

Early PowerShift levers were fine so long as mechanics didn't spray volatile mineral-oil based lubricants into them. The levers do not require lubrication of the internals but a lot of mechanics, professional and amateur, seem to do this as a default action ... We ran a fleet of PowerShift-equipped bikes from 2012 until 2017 without any vestige of a problem. The mineral oil gets absorbed by the plastics and softens.Later levers (Feb 2014 onwards), white cable bushings) used a different plastic (Delrin) which is more oil resistant but mineral oils are still a bad idea.

dddd

Thanks for explaining the spring-tension differences.

Can we assume then that the factory lubricant inside of the shifters is silicone-based?
Silicone, often enhanced with Teflon, seems to be the preferred lubricant around plastics and cable paths these days.

gfk_velo

The factory lubricant is Kluber Isoflex NB52 Topas grease.
So long as users don't wash it out with degreasers or other volatiles, the lubricationis good for 3 or 4 years. If the levers need lubrication beyond that time, we can strip, clean and reassemble at the Service Centres or Kluber make a spray version of the grease that coagulates post spraying. The rotation of the lever doesn't require lubrication so much as it requires corrosion to be controlled - having said which, it's a steel spindle running inside a phosphor bronze bushing so corrosion, other than in really extreme circumstances, is not a problem. The grease in the front and rear sections of the lever is generally sufficient to keep the pivot dry, and in any case, galvanic corrosion steel : phosphor bronze is very slow indeed.

AFAIK and checking on the COSHH information for the Kluber product, the oil component of the grease is a synthetic non-volatile, not mineral-base.

ppg677

Update: so I drove out to Yellow Jersey. He says they replace the whole bodies on those. He said even for rebuildable Records, unless you do it yourself it is almost as cost effective to buy a replacement body.

He had a lot of spare bodies. Not for Athena. He then called a Campagnolo contact. No part available in the U.S. and would have to order from Italy.

Fiddled with it for a solid 90+ minutes (I could not find an Athena schematic). It was more than just screw backing out-- the entire assembly had to be bent back so that the screw could even reach the threads. Then I had to futz with getting the gear in the right position. Then I futzed with trying to get the spring in there while having the gear in the right position. After 90+ minutes... I THINK I MAY HAVE IT TEMPORARILY FIXED. Once I got it back together in a way that I think works, I backed out the screw one more time (while levering the assembly in position to the threads reach) and then applied Blue Loctite.

We'll see. What a junky design/product. I guess I should have paid more for Record! (I went for the silver look). Or should have just gone Shimano.

dddd

Good job! I know how such repairs can take up a lotta time, and I've read up on getting the parts assembled around that spring.

Hoping it works.

tricky 

What a let down! I would have thought campy stuff these days was pretty robust. From what Choke said it sounds like they fixed it in newer models at least. That's sadly no consolation for you though.

ppg677

Is there anything else compatible with 2016 Athena derailleurs?

Athena seems hard to come by, and I'm fully expecting to have to replace shifters in the near future. Would be nice to keep the derailleurs.

gfk_velo

Unfortunately, not - Athena was, like Potenza and Centaur are now, basically stand-alone.

Lever bodies are freely available, so the best thing might be to pick up a couple of bodies only - any UltraShift brake lever blade will fit the bodies.

Depending on the material of the inner lever, the part numbers are:

EC-AT200 (RH, 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body), EC-AT201 (LH 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body) Silver inner lever
EC-AT200B (RH, 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body), EC-AT201B (LH 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body) Black alloy inner lever
EC-AT100 (RH, 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body), EC-AT101 (LH 2012-2014 version with thumb lever at 90 degrees to lever body) Composite inner lever

EC-AT400A (RH, 2012-2014 version with "dropped" thumb lever), EC-AT301 (LH 2012-2014 version with"dropped" thumb leve) Silver inner lever
EC-AT400C (RH, 2012-2014 version with "dropped" thumb lever), EC-AT301 (LH 2012-2014 version with"dropped" thumb lever) Composite inner lever

Miele Man

Indeed Peter Chisholm is very Campagnolo. On rec.bicycles.tech Usenet group he used to post with the signature qui si Campagnolo. He no longer posts there.

Cheers

Road Fan

Yes, I remember that, and that he posted it at his shop; qui si parle Campagnolo, which I don't know what it means. In French "qui se parle en Campagnolo" would be "here we speak in Campagnolo" but I don't think I can do any better using Google Translate. I always thought it meant "here we speak Campagnolo," but I dunno.

Miele Man

I get the same translation with Google Translate under Italian. SInce he works at Vecchio's Bicletteria, it makes sens that it'd be the plural 'we'.

He was a great help on many things Campagnolo related.

Cheers

Choke 

He didn't just work at Vecchio's, he was the owner. A couple of years ago he sold it and retired, though he still builds wheels and does Ergo overhauls. He's active over on the Paceline.

Miele Man

That's good to know. Thanks.

Cheers

Choke 

I forgot to add...his tag line was a play on a sign that some shops used to have in the window.

ppg677

Well at least I learned out to take this piece off and reassemble. Because I swung over to my local local bike shop and asked for a shift cable for my Campagnolo shifter. Well they gave me a shift cable that I tried, and it got completely stuck. Wouldn't shift, couldn't get the cable out.

So I dissembled that piece. Brought out my caliper and measured the cable end fitting at 4.39mm. And apparently Campagnolo end barrel diamer is 4.04mm (yeah, .35mm difference) and the bike shop gave me a Shimano cable.

Bad bike shop? Maybe. But I blame Campagnolo for being asinine enough to use an end barrel diameter is 0.35mm smaller and then a Shimano end barrel and can get stuck in the cheap-ass plastic fitting. Never again.

Choke 

I get your frustration but you should blame Shimano. Campy has been using the same size head on their derailleur cables for over 60 years, long before Shimano parts were stocked in the average bike shop.

Some sandpaper or a Dremel and a couple of minutes will allow the Shimano cable to work.

ppg677

Fair enough. In this case Shimano was assinine for not adopting a pre-existing standard that is only 0.35mm different!

That said, I now understand better why most of my local bike shops don't bother with Campagnolo. (I was always curious why an entire high-end shop could be filled with bikes from several different brands without anything having Campagnolo components).

Road Fan

I also blame the bike shop guys at least partly, who like many on BF (no names) blithely assume that Campy and Shimano use the same standards, and that Campy follows Shimano. In this neither company is perfect. Bike shop guy should have said "Campy or Shimano?" before sending you on your way. The bike shops are not perfect, either. Maybe we need autonomous-driven bike shops!

Home some of us, like me, are getting the lessons we've learned reminded, and that some of us whom are newer in this are discovering the sorts of things they should watch out for. Benefitting from seeing other people's problems and how they solve them is one of the advantages of a big forum like BF, limited to C&V or more broadly!

VtwinVince

Hmmm, that is very disappointing indeed. I've run 10 speed Chorus for years, and it's bomb proof. But I've only ever rebuilt Shimano STI's, so hopefully my Campy doesn't crap out like this.

Miele Man

Years ago before I learned to grind down the shifter head to fir, I rode all over the area and visited many bicycle shops whilst trying to find shifter cables with Campagnolo ends. Even the shop that sold Campagnolo components didn't have the Campagnolo end shifter cables. INCONCEIVABLE! LOL

Cheers

Miele Man

Neat!

Cheers

robertorolfo

What are you trying to say? Aren't lame generalizations like this frowned upon these days? But good on you for happily participating in the race to the bottom.

Thanks for all of this useful info.

Are the 'Square and Circle' rear derailleurs the ones with the 850-900g spring rating? By 'Square and Circle,' I mean the Centaur and Veloce series that featured square and circle graphics behind the group names. I know that on the inside of the boxes for these parts, there is a sticker recommending to use them with other parts from the square/circle series (is there another name that people use for those parts?).

Woah, relax. You still haven't explained why your rear brake "stopped returning," which is something I've never heard of in a skeleton brake that hasn't been abused, and all of this is starting to make me think there was some user error involved. How do we know you installed and routed the cables properly?

gfk_velo

Basically it breaks down like this ...

• Athena - if the top pivot bolt is chromed steel, silver, it's the stronger spring. If it's black alloy, it's the PowerShift version with the 850-900g spring.
• If the Veloce or Centaur RD you are looking at is the same shape as an 11s RD, it's designed for PowerShift (and will work equally well with the old rounded-top Escape shifters, although officially, this was never factory-tested). These are the "Square and Circle" types.
• If the Veloce or Centaur RD is old "10s shape" it's trickier - but you can look at the shape of the return spring inside the parallelogram, where it is clearly visible. If the free end of the spring is semi-circular in shape, it's the stronger spring. If it is more like 3/4 of a circle, it's the spring designed for Escape / PowerShift.

I'm glad someone else mentioned the fact that the size of nipple on the end of a derailleur cable was modified by Shimano - Campag had indeed used the same spec since the beginning of cable-operated derailleurs and the standard was adopted by every other maker - Rino, Galli, Ofmega, Gipiemme, Zeus, Huret - the list goes on - until Shimano rocked up and chose to change it. Still a mystery to me, all these years later (but in fairness to Shimano, they must have had a good reason ...)

Campagnolo offer free of charge technical training to UK retailers - I know, because I run it. What is another mystery to me, is why so few choose to make use of it. Campagnolo, Shimano and SRAM all have technical differences. That doesn't make one better or worse than another, just different. It's worth knowing the differences, (or at the very least, knowing there *is* a difference) if you want to position yourself as a professional mechanic or shop ...