campagnolo experts help please

[bishops farewell]

Try Jd whiskers in Welwyn garden city. I've used them for various campag issues - hunting down spares and general maintenance advice. If I recall correct they not a store, just a Campagnolo distributor, but the chap running their trade counter has always been 'very' helpful.

[Valbrona]

is it not the case that the same freewheel body is used in some campag and fulcrum wheels, so spare parts will continue to be available? I thought that was the case but have not verified it with my own eyes.

I am led to believe the earlier style of freehub body (designated as both 9 and 10 speed) perhaps ran on a slightly larger axle. But there is something that makes the contemporary freehub body incompatible with the earlier style hubs.

[Valbrona]

Mick - Here's what a Campag ratchet ring tool could look like, but I guess Campag use more than 27 teeth. http://bdopcycling.com/Tools-Novatec%20 ... 20Tool.asp

[Mick F]

32 hole Record Hubs are in the 2014 Campagnolo catalogue and in R J Chicken's catalogue.

Yep, just checked the 2014 range.
They do only 32h now.

28h has gone to be left with only 32h.
I wish they'd make their mind up!

[gfk_velo]

1/ The real Campag experts (not me, by the way) are on these boards and not Weight Weenies.

3/ You are going about replacing your freehub all wrong - you can't get the older pattern freehubs anymore. You buy a contemporary Record hub and you take out all of the internals, including the freehub, and you fit them into your hubshell. Or, you replace existing cartridge bearings in your freehub body.

Wrong on 1 and 3, I am afraid. I posted the following in answer to the same query on WW:

The OP's image of the freehub body looks to me as if the spacer between the two bearings is missing.

In a Campagnolo cassette body there are, as commented by BikerJulio et al., two cartridge bearings, which are spaced by a sleeve. They are light interference fitted into the body, the lower / inner one being retained by a c-clip. The spacing between the bearings is set by a sleeve which butts against the cones of each bearing. Hence the bearings are held the correct distance apart by a shoulder on the axle that fits against the cone of the lower / inner bearing and the sleeve, the whole being compressed by the LH threaded locknut and spacer (sometimes 2 pieces, sometimes one piece, all AFAWK the same depth on Campagnolo Oversize axle hubs 2001 - present).

In the OP's photo the upper / outer bearing looks to be about 10 or 12 mm too far "into" the body indicating that either the sleeve is missing, or both the lower bearing and the sleeve are missing.

It would be incredibly rare for the sleeve to be omitted in the assembly as normally the kit FH-RE415 is supplied with the cassette body fitted to the axle, ready to drop straight into the hub with just the drive-side wheel bearing cone needing to be installed. It would not be possible to correctly fit the locknut and spacer if the bearing were in the position shown so normally QA should see this. Like BikerJulio, I wonder if the cassette body has been "played with" ... the bearing spacer is not available as a spare so maybe it's been "robbed" by some helpful soul ...

The OP is correct - Campagnolo changed the cassette body design in 2006 - prior to that it was made in two pieces, alloy for the sprocket carrier and steel for the pawl carrier - the bore through the pawl carrier was round and the axle had a long cylindrical section that passed through that round bore. In 2006 the cassette body was modified into a single-piece design, all alloy, and the area under the pawls was reinforced with a chord taken out of the round bore under the heel of each pawl, so that the formerly round hole became more like a triangle with very rounded corners - the old axle would not fit through unmodified, so Campagnolo took the opportunity to lighten the axle by reducing part of the OD and by re-shaping the remainder of the formerly cylindrical part to pass through the re-shaped hole in the base of the cassette body.

Hence, pre 2006 bodies will fit the old axle, but not vice-versa.

Additionally ref 3 - you need to do exactly what the OP has done, fit FH-RE415 or yes, it is possible to replace the bearing cartridges in the older pattern cassette bodies (we do a couple a month, on average) ...

BTW, strictly speaking it's not a "freehub", it's a hub and a cassette body. Freehub systems by definition (given that Freehub is actually a registered Shimano trademark) use the outer bearing on the cassette body as an integral part of the whole-hub bearing system and can't spin without the cassette body present - Campagnolo hubs have separate bearing systems for the hub and the cassette body and will spin in the frame quite happily without the cassette body fitted.