Need some help from experienced Campy users

[bmxbandit]

I have a bike in atm that has me and my colleague scratching our heads, we're both 15+ year time served mechanics so suffice to say we have a good deal of experience! The issue is inconsistent indexing from the rd depending on which chainring you're in -ie we can set it up to work in either ring but not both, though saying that, the indexing does seem slightly lazy on either when test riding the bike.

Set up as follows:
Bianchi Oltre frameset
Campy Super Record mechainical(baring chain & cassette which are record)
Rolf Vigor wheelset
Campy cables
All parts are less than 200km old having never seen rain

We have tried obvious things such as hanger alignment, mech adjustment, ensuring cables are kink and friction free, chain length cassette torque. Next step is to unwrap the bar to see if the shifter has moved causing a gap to the housing.

Any suggestions welcome

[bikerjulio]

Your comment about "lazy shifting" would lead me to suspect excessive cable friction. Check that the cable end is properly inserted and not fouling the shifter body. Check that cable housing is properly inserted into the shifter, ends are not snagging, etc. Try pulling the unattached cable back and forth, that it's smooth and reasonably easy.

[5 8 5]

Double check or even triple check your RD hanger. 11 speed is very sensitive to that.

[boolinwall]

Works in one and not in another and vise versa would also lend me to want to check the hanger again. The lazy shifting, however, would have me checking my cable path under the bar tape. Have you tried it without tape on the bars?

[hasbeen]

check pulleys as well. Are they stock? Make sure they are installed correctly.

[tommasini]

Good in one ring and not the other suggests to me checking the hanger again.

For lazy shifting I sugest it's Cable friction. On one of my bikes I have the 2009/2010 rear der with slightly ligher rear return spring so it's even more sensitive to cable friction. There's the more obvious like lever hoods not properly in place and thus getting in the way of the thumb lever action, checking that the cables are fully up against the shift lever body....here's one more thing to check - as it helped in my case. After cutting the cables to length (or when squaring up with a file or grinder like I did) make sure that the inner housing isn't narrowed down there in anyway. The cable cutters can do that and the grinder can melt the inner a bit too. Taking something like a very small allen wrench to work that initial opening of the inner liner will help open it up more. Worked for me when nothing else could be found.

[bmxbandit]

Thanks for the replies guys, though as I said, we've exhausted most of those options already. Hanger checked several times both with different wheels and tools, housing checked for friction and inner replaced, all parts might as well be brand new for the use they've had, tried without the hoods installed. Cables have been properly cut with sharp tools the opened with a seal pick.

What we haven't done yet is remove the tape and check the seating of the housing/shifter interface, so thats next on the list. What puzzles most is why this problem seems chainring dependent when its an rd problem.........

[mr_tim]

Have you check rear stay alignment?

That could exacerbate an issue between shifts on 53 vs 39 ring - and would not be shown up by hanger alignment checks.

Also is the chain clean & oiled? A fresh from the factory chain will have some heavy grease on it which may slow down movement on shifts potentially.

[boolinwall]

That was my next suggestion. Is the frame correctly aligned? This is the one you hope isn't the issue.
When you have the bar tape off, free the cables from the bars completely and see if it shifts. Sometimes, depending on the angle of the shifters against the bars, the cables work better run behind the bars, sometimes they work better run in front. I always found campy to work better around front and SRAm seems to operate better around the back. Again, this is mostly due to bar angle.

[ferrarista]

Best way to know if you have cable friction is to move the index shifting lever ,but without changing gear. Check the rear derailleur for slight movement to the parallelogram. if it doesn't move you have friction.

Carbon frames with internal routing can cause friction. I know that I've seen a couple of frames having problems. One thing that improved a lot the shifting was to run the cable housing all the way to the BB.
11 speed is very sensitive with friction.

[hornedfrog]

Do the front and rear mech. cables cross inside the frame? This is my guess as to why you are having problems. If they are crossed, the difference in cable tension of the front mech. from small to large chainring can cause a little extra tension and/or friction in the rear mech. cable leading to sloppy rear shifting.

[em3]

Do you have the white or black cable spool in the ergo lever? The white spool requires you to Dremel the cable head a bit so that it will seat properly in the spool, otherwise, it does not seat properly and is prone to kinking as well as dragging on the inner ergo lever body, leading to poor shifting. Here is a link that explains the changes to the ergo lever internals that happened between 2009 (white spool) and 2010 (black spool...thereafter), including an official announcement from Campagnolo.

http://forums.roadbikereview.com/campag ... 25664.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have the 2009 SR ergo lever with the white spool and did experience the un-properly seated cable issue which lead to poor shifting. I never bothered changing out the spool...I simply Dremel the cable end a bit and it seats properly, and my shifting woes have been solved.

Regarding cables, make sure your rear der cable loop is sufficiently long and also run your der cables through back of bars, yielding the least amount of friction.

EM3

EDIT:
PS-also you will want to verify proper chain length... small/small is the recommended methods for Campagnolo

[bikerjulio]

Possibly Mr H Frog has the winning answer??

I agreed with everything em3 said too, right until this:

and also run your der cables through back of bars, yielding the least amount of friction.

I have always run cables at the front with no problem.

Every pro installation I have seen shows cables at the front.

Campy promo videos for the shifters show cables at the front.

Campy now supply shifters with DR cables pre-installed and in the front position!


Just to expand a little on em3's point about the early production (late 2008 to early 2009), shifters:

Indeed there were problems that included to 10-speeds too. I know because I had a set.

It's hard to tell by looking at them. OP do you know for sure the vintage of these? Where they bought through a recognized retailer or are they an eBay item? I don't think this is your problem, but worth checking.

The current part looks like this



http://www.bikeman.com/LD9085.html

Campy has otherwise stopped selling small shifter parts. Complete sub-assemblies only.

[bmxbandit]

Thanks again everyone, it's always useful to hear other opinions on such problems, spent a further two hours on it today to no avail

To clarify a couple of points/update what we've tried:
All parts have less than 100km use and were sourced through the official route(we are a stockist of Campy)
Original Campy cable and housing was today replaced with Gore sealed to ensure no friction, housing finished properly
Mech hanger replaced and checked for alignment
Frame checked for alignment -0.7mm difference at the seat tube(nowhere near bad enough to cause an issue imo)
Chain degreased and re-lubed
Cassette checked for torque
Freehub checked for play
h-screw adjustment checked
Checked for crossing of cables in down tube
Checked bb cable guide for movement

Pretty much at a loss as to the cause of this now, barring maybe a fault with either the rear derailleur or the cassette, but can't really understand why it would only manifest in one ring or the other rather than both. Spoke to a guy today who has delivered training for campy in the UK and has a wealth of experience with Campy, he couldn't really think of anything further to try which we had missed, though he did confirm that both shifter and rd were the most recent models.

[5 8 5]

As you've eliminated so much you might have to start substituting the ergo, rd, cassette, chain & chainset to try to isolate the problem item.