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Another 8 speed question

3K views 10 replies 4 participants last post by  bikerjulio 
#1 ·
I have an 8 speed ergo power group on one of my bikes. The group name is not on any of the components, so I assume 1992 - 1994?? Can I transfer my current 8 speed cassette over to any 8 speed campagnolo rear hub? In other words, are there any spline differences that I need to be aware of when looking for a new wheelset? Thanks. Karl
 
#2 ·
There was a longish thread about this a few weeks ago where I was able to educate myself and learnt something.

The splines for 8-speed are the shallow ones on a steel freehub that look a bit like Shimano splines, so that part is easy to see. The hard part is that for a year or two Campy produced a convertible 7 or 8-speed hub. The freehub on this is shorter and to use it as 8-speed the 8th cog was threaded and acted as a lockring. The true 8-speed freehubs fitted 8 cogs and used a lockring.

On eBay there were sellers describing the 7-speed hub as 8-speed which is misleading to say the least. And without seeing the hubs side by side it's not easy to tell. I'd be avoiding the convertible hubs.

So be careful.
 
#5 ·
Meaning on a current deep spline freehub. The spacers needed are a custom thickness however. The standard advice was to use Wheels spacers but they don't seem to make them any more.

I'd agree that the supply of any 8-speed parts looks to be in rapid decline. There's only a few 8-spd wheelsets on the Bay right now.
 
#7 ·
There are two Campy 8 speed cassette standards. On the original, the splines were all the same size and the cogs have lettering so that you can arrange them in the proper order for good indexing. Exa Drive was the second iteration where one of the splines is smaller so the cogs only go on one way - hence the letters are gone. I'm not sure if 8 speed was ever made with the stepped spline like we see on 9 and 10 speed.

If your cassette is Exa Drive, it won't work on the first gen 8 speed freehub unless I guess you get real aggressive and grind out the small spline to make it bigger.
 
#8 · (Edited)
Don't think this is 100% correct. Maybe 50%?

The later Exa-drive cassette sprockets will fit on the earlier 7-8 speed freehub. It's the old sprockets that won't work on the 8-speed freehub. Anyway OP has strict instructions to look for the later freehub.

7-8 speed

Product Brown Photograph White Line


8-speed

 
#9 ·
#10 ·
Wow! This is complicated. According to the two links provided by hfc, there were pre-Exa drive 8 speed hubs and cassettes that were not 7/8 speed convertible. I have an 8 speed cassette with a separate lock ring that has evening spaced splines and the splines are labelled A - H. I did not notice when I removed the cassette if it was installed according to the table in one of the links.
 
#11 ·
I agree. Going back to your original question it sounds like you have an early 8-speed cassette in which all the splines are the same width, like the first image I posted. These sprockets will not fit on the later 8-speed freehub with it's one narrow spline. You could in theory grind the sprockets (on the correct tab of course) to create a narrow tab, as mentioned on HFC's link.

As an aside to all this, I had mistakenly assumed for many years that Exa-drive and Ultra-drive referred to the freehub splining pattern - not so. It refers to the tooth shaping only. Thus there are later '90's Exa-drive MK2 cassettes that fit the current deep spline freehubs.
 
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