Campag spacings on a Shimano freehub

[Blade]

I have a nice set of very lightweight wheels, fitted with a Shimano freehub.

However, I'm considering fitting them onto my Campag equipped bike. I'm aware though, of the slightly different spacings between cassette brands.

Now I'm well aware of replacement freehubs, Travel agents, clamping bodges and even special cassettes with Shimano splines and Campag spacings, but I've been considering another solution instead.

If I take a Shimano cassette, put all the spacers aside and replace the spacers with a set from an old Campag cassette of the same speed, I'm thinking that it should work.

To clarify. Using Shimano sprockets on a Shimano freehub, but with Campag spacers. Ten speed cassette, with ten speed levers.

Obviously, some of the lugs on the plastic spacers would need modifying with a file but this is very easy to do.

Anyone tried this before ? Is there some problem that I've not considered which would make this unworkable?

[Rod Marton]

I think you'll find that Campag and Shimano 10 speed sprockets have different thicknesses (only 0.1mm, but it adds up over the width of a cassette). So if you use Shimano sprockets with Campag spacers you'll end up with the wrong srpocket spacings and it won't index properly.

[tatanab]

^^^^ Highpath used to make spacer kits for just this reason, currently they are not doing them.  You had to specify the freehub, Campag or Shimano for diameter of spacer, and then the sprocket type to determine the thickness - Shimano, Campag, Marchisio  were the common ones.  A few years ago I bought a set to fit Marchisio sprockets at Campag spacing on a Shimano freehub.

This is not to say that your method will not work adequately.

[Blade]

I can see that I'll have to break out the micrometer and check sprocket thicknesses.

[Blade]

Results of measuring all the different speeds and brands that I own, produce a similarity of sprocket thicknesses.

Campag. 10 speed  ------  .070"

Shimano 9 speed --------  .071"

Sram      11 speed ------   .073"

Sram      9 speed --------   .071"

I'm aware that we allegedly went metric in 1971, but as I'm in possession of several imperial micrometers I thought that I'd put them to good use.

[Feanor]

Is the cassette made entirely of individual sprockets which can be re-spaced?
Usually, the 3 or more larger ones are made up as a single piece onto a wide spider, and cannot be re-spaced.

Individual larger sprockets would chew through an Al. freehub body pretty quickly.

[Blade]

My Campag Chorus cassette is entirely made up of individual sprockets, the largest of which is 27 tooth. Only slight markings on the freehub after eleven years of regular use.

Unsure about large Shimano sprockets, not sure if mine are on a spider or not. Would need to remove it to check. If they're riveted together, then it wouldn't be too difficult to remove the rivets, re-space and then re-rivet the spider.

If only I hadn't thrown away my worn out Shimano cassette that I changed last year, I'd give it a go.

[Feanor]

I just went to look at a couple of mine.
(These are Ultegra 12-25 10 spd)

There are not individual spacers between the 3 largest sprockets.
The spacing is set by the thickness of the machined spider arms.
This would require the spider to be either machined down or shimmed up to adjust the spacing.

(Incidentally, this was visible by inspection from the back of the cassette, I didn't need to remove them.)

Another thing to consider is that the overall width of the cassette will change, and that might cause issues with the lockring.
If the cassette is now narrower, you'll need to add some spacer behind the cassette or the lockring will bottom out on the freehub body before it snugs down on the smallest sprocket.
If it's now wider, you may not get enough thread engagement between the lockring and the freehub body.

[Blade]

Not too much of a problem, reducing the thickness of the spider. I could do that with a file, while checking frequently with a micrometer. Checking my 'resources' cupboard, I've found a sheet of .004"shim.

The spacer width difference between Campag 10 speed and Shimano 10 speed is mainly .1 mm or .004", so overall cassette width is probably + or - 1 mm / .040" . I'm not 100% sure but I think the lock ring thread pitch is 1.1 mm. My current Campag lock ring takes around two rotations before I switch from finger  rotation to starting to need a spanner.

I'll probably put this idea on the back-burner until I can get hold of a worn out Shimano cassette to disassemble.

[Brucey]

when you have (say) three sprockets on a single carrier they cannot be respaced in a straightforward fashion, so you should forget modifying shimano 105 or higher 10s cassettes.

 However there are some shimano 10s cassettes which are built using individual sprockets, e.g. CS-HG500-10. Eight are riveted together and the rivets can be removed. [These cassettes only fit on 8/9/10s freehub bodies, not the '10s only' type where the major diameter of the spline is larger.]

Sprockets can vary in thickness and so can spacers, but the bottom line is that campag 10s is 4.15mm pitch and shimano 10s is 3.95mm pitch.  This means that if you make seven 0.2mm shim spacers and fit them between sprockets #2 to #9 then you have respaced the sprockets to work with campag 10s shifters. 1-2 and 9-10 shift intervals are controlled by the mech stop screws so these sprocket spacings don't need to be adjusted.  7 x 0.2mm = 1.4mm so this setup won't work unless you can use a lockring which has at least this many spare threads and furthermore there is (or can be made) clearance to the RH dropout.

cheers

[De Sisti]

If you're using Campag 10s levers, front/rear derailleurs and a Shimano hub, then a Shimano
9s cassette will work perfectly. That's the combination I've been using for years without any
problems.