Swapping Campagnolo Lever Blades

Does anyone have any experience removing and/or installing the brake and downshift (RH) lever blades on 3rd generation Campagnolo ergo levers?

I have bought a new shifter body (EC-RE100 R/H ) as my RH Athena 11sp shifter stopped working properly- dropping right into the smallest sprocket every time the thumb lever was pressed. Apparently ultrashift doesn't suffer from the same problem, and didn't cost much more so I've gone for it. Now I need to swap the ally brake lever over and also preferably (though not absolutely essential) the ally shift lever.

This video makes removing the brake lever look very easy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-lLOezZJr0
I've not had much luck so far but I think that more force (and a better way of applying it) is needed. Any tips/experience of removing the shift lever would be appreciated.

tl;dr : Anyone got any tips for swapping levers from old shifter to new?

Cheers

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Replacing the brake lever only is pretty straightforward. There is a pivot point and that can be tapped off using a mallet and a tiny drill bit of the same size (hammer on the tip of the drill bit, displacing the rivet with the back of the drill to avoid damaging the rivet). Once that rivet is off, the blade comes off. Reassemble in exactly the same way.

The shifter is much harder, as you need to disassemble the all Ergo lever, strting from the very back, where the allen bolt is. The shifter spring is particularly hard to fit, kind of a watchmaker job.
If in trouble, send the lot to Velotech

Thanks for the response, I've now managed to switch the brake lever using the method you describe and using a bit more force than before.

I had imagined that it might be possible to knock out the pivot pin for the shifter in a similar way, though this may well be impossible due to manufacture (it looks a bit like a snap rivet style end). I don't really see why the whole shifter body would need to be disassembled but trust that it's probably not worth attempting at the moment.

I think I'll install the new ergo as is and put up with it looking like Veloce for the meanwhile, and if I do find out how to swap the shifter, I can always do that at a later date.

the small lever is attached to a sort of a ring that drives the ratchet mechanism when you shift. you have to take the whole mechanism apart and transfer the lever with ring.

edit: different generation, but same concept:

Cheers @drøn , I found this video which shows pretty much exactly what I have to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5mzR8-rh8M

I've stripped my broken shifter to get the aluminium 'finger lever' now, but I don't quite have the confidence in my skills to completely disassemble (and correctly reassemble) the new one which I've just paid £65 for.

Success.

After watching the video above many times over, I managed to swap the finger shifters without even taking the shifter body off the bars. This was mostly due to laziness- having already installed new cables and re-wrapped the bars, but also because it looks like a lot of parts to lose if you start taking the back out as well. This made it quite tricky getting everything in and out, especially the torsional spring, but it all seems to work again! A note on the spring; they are slightly different between old (PS) and new (US) and attach in different points on the identical 'finger levers'.

Thanks for the tips, hopefully this thread will help others attempting the same thing in the future.

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Got the same problem with my Veloce Powershift - skips right to the bottom. £58 on Chicken Cycles for a replacement body, ~£80 for a new set of Veloce shifters. Is it worth the hassle for the sake of saving £20? Looks like a bit of a pain...

I think with Veloce you'd only need to swap the the brake lever blade as the shift levers are black plastic anyway aren't they? That bit was really straight forward once I started putting some effort into whacking the pin out. Personally I'd say it was worth saving £20.

I wouldn't have bothered with the whole switching shift levers that I did, had I not been saving £50 and also getting an upgrade to Ultrashift. Plus I'm pretty pleased with myself now for playing about with shifter internals and not fucking it up.

Fair point - I'll give it a go. Thanks!

I'd imagine Power Shift, being OEM orientated, isn't going to be as easy as Ultra Shift to work on: cf Power Torque and Ultra Torque.

Get the new shifters and gut the old ones for your sweet fixeh!

I'm not sure I agree about Power Shift being trickier to work (especially just switching brake levers- their identical), the internals seemed to come apart in a similar way for both the Athena (PS) and the Record/Chrous (US) I worked on as well.

The point about getting a really nice pair of brake levers for effectively £20 is a good one though, I think that would swing it for me.

Fair enough: I was making a(n educated) guess, based on the cranks.

I recently put together 2007-2010 Veloce and Centaur groups and second-hand Ultra Shift Ergo go for the same sort of money as new Power shift.

I suppose that's just down to the shifting though?

Traditionally the only difference between a Chorus and above to the Centaur and below Ergo lever is the presence or absence of a pair of tiny bearings, which make everything feel smoother. The rest is in essence exactly the same. Veloce and Centaur are identical and so are Chorus and Record/SR as far as mechanism goes