Update Shamal wheelset to Shimano 9 speed

[jordic1968]

There are several posts everywhere that try to explain how to make it possible, but no one convinced me. I'm very motivated as I have a pair of Shamals while looking for a nice Shimano 9 speed wheelset ...
After weeks thinking on that topic, It came to me an idea how to make it happen. Let me explain it here before staring the action, in case you see this not feasible ;(

Here the differences, from Sheldon Brown's site:

Center-to-center Spacing Spacing Sprocket Spacer Thickness Total Width
Campagnolo 5.0 mm 1.9 mm 3.1 mm 36.9 mm
8-speed
Shimano 4.34 mm 1.78 mm 2.56 mm 36.5 mm
9-speed

So I only need to buy 2 Campy 8 speed cassettes; take 9 coogs; sand them from 1.9 to 1.78 ; and do the same with the plastic spacers, from 3.1 to 2.56 mm.

Could that work ??

 

[shredderxle]

Re:

I have an ambrosio 9 speed shimano tooth spacing cassette with a campagnolo splined body on my old campag kysyriums i run with a shimano groupset.
Would something like this be easier than sanding spacers down?

Edit to add that i just googled it and they only seem to do ten speed campag cassete widths now.

 

[Camberwell123]

Let me know if you need any campagnolo 8 speed cassettes. I have some spare I will sell for a competitive price

 

[jordic1968]

Almost got it ...

I bought a 9 speed shimano cassette , just for the spacers, (these are thinner than 8 spd campy , much closer to the shimano 9 speed ones) and a spare campy 8 speed cogg (I already had a 8 sp campy cassette).

Sanded a little bit the new spacers and tried...... bad, as I sanded too much and not all spacers equally .

Not all is lost ... I created myself some paper washers (regular 80 gr blank sheet and put in addition to each of the spacers.... good!. Not really perfect shifting yet , but almost. Now I believe adding or removing one more paper washer here or there will get it pretty smooth.

Not a solution that will last for 10 years, but for an occassional Sunday rider like me it's a good way to make use of an older&nice Shamal I've not been able to sell for a decent price ;(

I realized it's not the right place for this topic, but I do nt see how can I move it, sorry

 

[hamster]

Note that Campag spacers are not all the same thickness - it varys across the cassette a little.

 

[jordic1968]

8 speed as well ??

 

[hamster]

Not sure about 8! I think they may be the same, average 5.0mm.

Similarly Shimano actually pulls a bit more cable on the first click (from top) to take up a little slack in the cable as it's intended that the mech sits fully on the stop in top year.

 

[jordic1968]

Got it! Pretty smooth... Even the smallest cogg I did not sand shifts fine. I compared to another rear wheel I have with an Ultegra 9 speed cassette and I did barely notice any difference in shifting.

Easy and cheap solution to make some use of older Shamals, but honestly I prefer lighter wheels. But that's a topic for another post!

 

[pigman]

Re:

i admire your have-a-go style. So not wanting to pee on your bonfire, but questions are

- will paper spacers work under load? It may be ok on a workstand without force twisting the cogs on the freehub, but what about the open road? What about after many rides, are they durable or will they start to become chewed? what if it rains?

- aren't the big 3 cogs on a shimano cassette mounted on a carrier, so no spacers as such to be had?

 

[jordic1968]

Good questions, and thanks for reading! I'm glad you are interested.

- I've rode it in open road and uphill.... no issues so far. But you are right I had to use 3 "hand-made" paper washers, due to not-equally sanding all the spacers and some issues can come from this. That's something to avoid ; a lesson learnt ! I presume anyhow they will not wear in the short term, even under rain (althought I do not ride under rain) as they are "compressed" between a spacer and a coog. Important here is that there is no friction then , and no space for the water to get into. As long as I'm not going to ride this bike every day, I'd say I'm safe. I'd expect though in some years these paper washers can be desintegrated due to moisture... but good thing is they are pretty easy to replace A durable solution would be to get 3 new 9 speed spacers and sand them equally to the rest.

- EDITED: the 9 speed shimano cassette I got has individual coogs.

For sure it is not the most elegant solution. I'm aware it has many "cons" but a main "pro" that it is a quick, easy and very cheap solution that worked for me.

Some other solutions are there to go from 8 campy to 9 campy, but from 8 capmy to 9 shimano I could not find a better solution rather than selling the weelset and buying another one

Playing with this I've learned a lot about the different shapes of campy coogs, so that's another "pro" of this solution

EDITED: Thanks pigman for your questions, I realized I provided a wrong answer, so trying to ammend here. It's all a little bit confusing, even to me, as I planned first to use a space 9 speed campy but finally got a 9 speed shimano one (was in fact a miche compatible). The spacers I used then were Shimano 9 speed spacers, not campy. So required sanding is indeed very little, just the difference in thickness between campy 8 and shimano 9 coogs (around 1mm overall). Hope it helps!