Campag 8 speed woes

The Mrs has purchased a rather nice 753 Graham Weigh from eBay.

It arrived looking a little grimy, so she gave it a good clean and some fresh cables and brake blocks- also hoods as these had perished.

So now it is time to index the gears, and here the problem comes.

If anyone has Campy 8 speed could they tell me if when upshifting to the final stop on the rear mech does it click and hold?

Or can you shift to the lowest sprocket and still push the selecting lever across again?

Essentially I can get the entire block indexed perfectly bar the final 8th lowest sprocket- and I can get it to shift to that perfectly if I hold the shift lever out.

I suspect that it should click into another stop at that point if you see what I mean.

Help!

Evening Dammit,

I think I have had a similar problem on a classic Raleigh racer that I had:

**1. Your rear down shifter is not for an eight speed. Does the leaver push further one stop when you are in you lowest/highest gear?

1. your gear cables need a look at. Re-tensioned or probably easier to get new gear cables.
   
   

OR

1. Potentially mis-alignment with the rear derailier.**
   
   
   

If when you put your foot down you suddenly change gear with a massive clunk then I reckon one of the above three points (or a mixture of above) is where to start.

Good luck...

Gilles.

PS - do you know if you can change your title once registered?

Basically it is perfectly indexed on sprockets 1-7, then there seems to be no stop to shift to sprocket 8 (where 9 is the largest sprocket).

Having fitted new hoods I'm wondering if I have blocked some part of the shifting mechanism- the hoods were extremely tight to get on!

I think if you had created a blockage you'd know about it almost immediately. You'd probably find that your whole gear changing would be affected.

If you live anywhere near Putney got to Putney Cycles - they're great!

Gilles.

I might be getting confused here but, have you set the High and Low screws correctly? See if you can actually manually push the derailleur out to the 8th sprocket. Maybe the limit has been set too low and so the derailleur can't travel far enough for the pawl in the shifter to engage.

...or something.

i'm with Pifko. check your high and low limit screws on the rear derailleur. if you're indexed correctly for the first seven cogs, then it may just be a matter of fine tuning the limits.

Interesting- I'll have a fiddle with the limit screw and see if it is simply a case of not being able to engage the pawl in the shifter.

If you hold the shifter over then it shifts onto the 8th sprocket and sits there happily, not chuntering as if it wants to shift at all.

The top jockey wheel sits directly below the sprocket.

The issue being the second you release the shifter it drops back onto sprocket 7.

It's just rather frustrating having 7 gears index perfectly but not the 8th.

clintsmoker had this issue when we were riding in france. he had to hold the lever over for the whole of the climb of the Mont Ventoux. big cajones that fella.

i am seeing him later so will check what he did to fix it when we got back to our hotel. wasn't anything too tricky. though it could be a case of same symptom different illness.

Thankfully Campag shifters are supposedly quite easy to service if that's what is needed.

clintsmoker had this issue when we were riding in france. he had to hold the lever over for the whole of the climb of the Mont Ventoux. big cajones that fella.

i am seeing him later so will check what he did to fix it when we got back to our hotel. wasn't anything too tricky. though it could be a case of same symptom different illness.

Thanks Jonny, I've run out of answers (hence post), would be good to have a new angle to attack.

Retro-di-corsa sorted my 7 speed out. He's not far from you, in Bermondsey.

neil, i will be seeing him before coming to SE beers later, so will let you know what he says. catch ya then dude

Probably repeating what's already been said (in different words) but:
Start by setting the high/lo limit screws - very important. Even easier if you can remove the chain... in the high gear (small sprocket) the spring tension is loading the screw so just fiddle with it until the jockey wheel is directly in line with the small cog. Then shift to lowest gear (large cog) and use your hand to put a bit of extra tension on the cable along the chainstay so it is tight up against the limit screw - again, tweak screw so jockey wheel lines up with cog, but be careful you don't allow mech to strike spokes. Now you can seriously check the indexing - on the small cog there should be no clicks left one way and the first click the other way should shift up a cog. If there's nothing wrong with the mech or the shifter you should have the full range available now, but obviously adjustment will be required to get the indexing right - concentrate mainly on middle of the block, the high and low gears are dealt with partly by the limit screws. Or bring it round and I'll take a look...

Pifko wins a beer- it was the low limit screw.

It needed a quarter of a turn out and then Ta-Da! instant perfect indexing.