Campagnolo 8 Speed Cassette

retrojon

Retro Guru
Right, I've got an old one of these, but there are no arrows to line anything up and they are not keyed.

There are letters A,B,C etc around them, and some teeth are shaped to assist shifting. Anyone know if it is important to line up the letters?

Also, are there different sprokets available? I want an 18t.
 
Ahhh...

This is a pre ExaDrive cassette, which dates it to between 1989 and 1993.

In 1994, Campagnolo changed the spline pattern so that the cogs could only sit in one orientation on the freehub body. This made assembly much simpler.

With the pre-Exa drive cassette, it is possible to slide the cogs on in ANY orientation, so you are in trouble unless you have the booklet that shows how to align the different cogs. The alignment depends on the size of the adjacent cogs.

I will look for the booklet, and if I find one, I'll post a scan up here.

Incedentally, the "A" "B" and "C" cogs you refer to, are not related to the orientation of the cogs. An "A" cog is defined as one that belongs next to the lockring in position #1. In a similar fashion, a "C" cog is the one that always sits closest to the spokes in position #8. The rest are in the middle and are "B" cogs. A pre-ExaDrive cassette should have one "A", six "B" and one "C" cog. The A should always be the smallest, and the "C" should always be the largest. I have seen shonky Ebay sellers mixing and matching As, Bs and Cs all over the place. Shifting would be ugly with those frankencassettes...
 
Okay, stole the reference chart from another website:
Click here if the image below is not clear.
8s-cassette.jpg
 
After I posted that diagram, I jumped on my Campag 8-speed Zullo and rode home, daydreaming about quality bike parts...

A couple of other thoughts occurred to me...

1) The complex design of this cassette assembly was to enable Campagnolo to circumvent the patent that Shimano held on cassette ramps. It wasn't because a Shimano ruled the world... just the patent office.

2) Pre-ExaDrive cassettes don't fit on 8-speed hubs made later than 1993 without filing one of the notches on each cassette wider. However, the good news is that if you have a pre-ExaDrive (1989-1993) hub, you can use both pre-ExaDrive cassettes, or ExaDrive Cassettes.

3) Despite the complexities of the system, the shifting advantage was still only marginal when compared to older friction clusters.

4) The best feature of these cassettes was reversibility. You could wear a cassette right down, and when the cogs started skipping, simply turn over any or all of the cogs, and they were like new again. This effectively doubled the life of a cassette. Try doing that with 9/10/11 speed stuff from any manufacturer!
 
That is exactly what I wanted thanks!

Knew the letters were there for a reason - who would have thought it would involve a picture and table...

Obviously I have already assembled and ridden for a while, so will compare shifting with the correct assembly with my "it looks pretty like this" assembly.

Odds on guessing it correctly must be like cracking Enigma code.
 
Back
Top