The cause of much bike-stress, and hours of attempting to solve a puzzle that has no end...
My Kona has Shimano-splined hubs and a Campag Centaur ten-speed set-up. I read that a nine-speed Shimano cassette would work great if you index it perfectly on gear five. Someone had worked out that there was like .5mm difference at either end of the cassette over an all-Campag setup, which the jocket wheel should soak up no worries.
Worked brilliant! Paired it up with a KMC chain and I spend an entire Summer on it with zero problems. However, one day it unexpectedly stopped working for no reason - I can't get it to index for love nor money.
I've tried using a Mavic M10 cassette with Shimano splines and Campag 10-speed spacing too, but given that it is too wide for a standard Shimano freehub, I had to set it up as nine-speed with a 1mm spacer (btw, I always take a dim view of fannying around with gear set-ups liek this when other people do it). Fits fine, but again, will not index for love nor money. I had it running perfectly for a day but then it stopped working.
Going back to basics now - will replace the gear cable for starters before thinking about the chain, but it is nowhere near the end of its life.
So - it kinda works - but trying to index my gears has driven me up the wall I have punched my bike a la Basil Fawlty.