Servicing campag xenon shifter

smacl

My LHS shifter left me stuck in the large ring for much of a long spin last weekend. While it eventually came back, I've lost some confidence in using it on longer spins and am thinking either service or replace, so have a couple of questions.

How easy is it to take these things apart, and what are the chances of utterly wrecking them. It is a 9sp triple left hand xenon shifter. I'm guessing what happened is that internally there is some kind of ratchet mechanism, which either needs tightening or replacing. Pure speculation mind.

If I decide to replace, I could pick up new 10 speed veloce shifters for pretty much the same price as 9 speed xenon. To move up to 10 speed, I'd obviously need a new chain and cassette, but what about rear deraileur and front rings? I'm guessing there's enough range in the rear deraileur, but it is just a guess. Not sure if the narrower 10sp chain would work with a 9 speed triple crankset and front deraileur. I'd also be loathe to splash out bigger money on a whole new groupset, as I'd rather wait and get a whole new bike.

bcmf

They are easy enough to dissamble. Just have patience and a long nose screwdriver.

Are you sure its your shifter?
I would clean and lube FD and replace all cables and housing before I go pulling apart a shifter.

smacl

Pretty sure it is the shifter, as the button to drop a ring was locked and it is normally just loose but does nothing once you get to the granny ring. That said, changing the cables does no harm and I think I've spare gear inners and outers knocking around.

Just found the following online that should be similar enough to what I'm doing;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5mzR8-rh8M

c50

going against the grain, campag levers are not easy to overhaul. are they easy to take apart? yes. putting it back together- a seperate issue. theres 2 pieces in particular that are very tricky springs to put into place and could take you an hour or two easily each on your first go. after overhauling 5 or 6 times it starts to become second nature. theres a total of between 45-50 pieces to take apart when overhauling

all campag 9/10 spd levers are prone to sticky shifting where it jams and wont engage. on the bottom ring trying to go up, the trick is the lift the thumb shifter upwards while changing, the opposite going down, gently hold the trigger outwards while thumb-shifting down. of course this is not a fix just a way out but i have yet to hear a proper fix for this but i believe it lies with worn teeth on the engaging cog.


in my own opinion the chances of the levers being worn is pretty likely and wouldnt be worth repairing when a pair of xenon levers are about 90quid new valuing one retailing at 45. so depends if you like mechanics or view it as working time i suppose:)

letape

I agree with c50 on this. Levers are easy to take apart but very difficult to reassemble.

If you are very good with your hands and have a lot of experience and patience give it a go.

There are a number of springs that are very hard to rewind and re-position correctly. If you do try this, take pictures at each step as you disassemble the levers to help you as you try to reassemble.

nak

I got a Xenon shifter for €20 from a Dublin bike shop when the lever on my Centaur one snapped (day before a sportive). Shops or people on here may have a spare one kicking around for you if you need it.

bcmf

Just thinking about this and I think C50 said it above.
You may well be better off buying a new set of of shifters as they come with cables as well. It will only really work out a few quid extra and if you are making the jump to 10 speed well then it makes sense.

If you wanna go the rebuild route a lot of UK shops will sell you the body ie you just have to switch/swap the brake lever blade and the hood.
Save you the hassle of stripping the shifter and you should be a ble to sell the worn on ebay for a few sheckles-hopefully.

smacl

Thanks for the feedback guys. Simplest solution is just to get some new xenon shifters so, €84 in Wiggle at the moment which wont break the bank, and the range of gears I have at present suits me fine. Might actually get the 10sp Veloce shifters for an extra tenner, and just use the left one until the next time I'm replacing chain and cassette.

countrykid

smacl wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback guys. Simplest solution is just to get some new xenon shifters so, €84 in Wiggle at the moment which wont break the bank, and the range of gears I have at present suits me fine. Might actually get the 10sp Veloce shifters for an extra tenner, and just use the left one until the next time I'm replacing chain and cassette.

have a brand new left hand veloce here if u want to buy...€30
BUT remeber it looks different to old profile xenon

doozerie

I've rebuilt my 9-speed (double) Chorus levers in the past, and I've been very happy with the results. I describe the process a bit here. I've no idea how those levers compare to Xenon though so not all of the info may be relevant.

The campyonly.com site has other useful info on it too, some info on converting a 9sp lever into a 10sp lever and the like. And in case you need any spare parts for your levers check www.branfordbike.com (where I bought my stuff) and www.sidcupcycles.co.uk (which I've never used).

smacl

countrykid wrote: »

have a brand new left hand veloce here if u want to buy...€30
BUT remember it looks different to old profile xenon

Is that black or silver lever, and where are you based?

countrykid

smacl wrote: »

Is that black or silver lever, and where are you based?

I have both colour levers here.,,
Naas..

Cheers

smacl

Hi Countrykid, thanks for the offer, but I've decided to pick up a matched pair so that I can look at upgrading to 10sp as a winter project.

smacl

And got the veloce 10 speed shifters, full new inners and outers, cassette and new chain installed over the last couple of days, and all is well in the world once again. Veloce 10sp double shifters are also fine for triple cranks, the 10 speed chain seems fine with the 9 speed cranks, and the old xenon 9sp long cage derailleur works fine for 10 speed, so all good.

FWIW, the problem with the old xenon left shift was that one strand of the cable had snapped and was snagging the downshift, which indicated all the cables were due a refresh anyway. Also slowly accumulating enough parts for a cheapo turbo specific rig.