# Campy compatibility with Easton R3 hubs - The Truth



## natedg200202

I recently purchased and installed a new Campagnolo Chorus 11s groupset. Installation was going well right up until I slid the new 11s cassette onto my trusty Easton Tempest II wheels. The largest cog rubbed against the right hub flange, meaning the cassette would not freewheel. I considered adding a spacer behind the cassette, but there is no room left at the length of the cassette body; adding a spacer would leave me with not enough threads for the lockring and an 11t cog with splines that were not engaged. 

This was a real blow as I don't have any money for a new set of wheels. I got the cassette installed on an old beater rear wheel and started to do some research. My search led me to this forum:

The nice gentlemen there spoke of a replacement hub body that he installed to solve the problem. It's the Easton C2/V2/C3 body and it's available at various sources (I got mine here). I wasn't sure this would work on my specific model (the mentioned forum was an Orion wheel) so I gave the folks at Easton a call to confirm this would work. 

The first lady said I was out of luck and that I would have to purchase a new set of wheels. I wasn't satisfied with this and asked to speak with someone who could explain the situation. I got hold of a guy that told me the same thing - that I was out of luck and I would need a new set of wheels. He said that Easton may be able to take my wheels as part of a buy-back program to get me a replacement set. This didn't sound appealing to me at all. I asked him about the C2/V2/C3 cassette body and he said that had worked for some customers but he couldn't say it would work for me. I thought it was interesting that he would not offer this solution voluntarily - I had to present it to him and even then, he gave me no confidence that it would work. 

Anyways, not the most encouraging endorsement, but I went ahead and purchased the part. It does indeed work and solves the compatibility problem. My Tempest II wheels are now fully Campy 11 speed compatible!

Here are some pictures. This is the old body:









This is the cassette pushed onto the old body. No room and it is rubbing on the right flange.









Here is the old (left) and new (right) bodies. See the steps at the bottom of the splines on the new body? That is what pushes the cassette out the correct distance so it doesn't hit. 









Another picture of the old (left) and new (right) bodies.









For reference, the hub is called the R3 model and came with my Tempest II wheels. (diagram for this hub is here) Changing out the cassette body is easy. You only need two 5mm allen wrenches. Put one 5mm allen wrench in the non-driveside axel to keep the axel from spinning. Put the other 5mm allen wrench in the drive-side axel. Turn counter-clockwise to completely remove the fixing nut. Then pull the hub body off. The wheel then looks like this:









Then, simply slide the new hub onto the axel. Squeeze three fingers in behind the body to hold down the pawls and push fully in. Then, in a similar manner to removal, use your two 5mm allen wrenches to install the fixing nut back (clockwise). Tighten this nut to 125 in-lbs.

This is the C2/V2/C3 body installed:









This the cassette slid on. Notice the additional spacing behind the largest cog. No rubbing. 









This is the 11t cog. The cog splines are hanging over the cassete splines a bit, but there is enough material there to bite. 









Here is the lockring installed. Notice that the knurled axel (that will be pressed against the inside edge of the dropout) rises just above the surface of the lockring. Not much room to spare, but enough to work!









A happy ending for sure, but I'm a bit miffed that Easton would not give me a straight answer. In the end, I think their main motivation in giving me a buy-back offer instead of correct information is that they desparately want to get these older hubs out of circulation. I understand that the straight pull arrangement is very time intensive for them to work on and cost them money every time a set comes in for warranty repair. 

I hope others find this information useful.


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## Kenacycle

excellent informative post! 

Thank you for sharing


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## drewmcg

*thanks!*

Just ordered by C2 (from biketiresdirect.com for $50) to update my Orion II to Campy 11. Thanks so much for all of the time/effort you put in to this post!


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## drewmcg

*oh . . .*

BTW: Easton's hub compatibility chart does not even list a "C2" cassette body (!):

http://www.eastoncycling.com/bike/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/2011-Easton-Cassette-Body-Chart.pdf


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## natedg200202

drewmcg, glad you got some useful information from this thread and hope the wheels get changed over successfully for you!

Easton is dropping support for these great, old wheels. Mine won't die so I will just keep using them. Just as well - they are designed much better than the new offerings from Easton.


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## castofone

I had a similar issue with a Dati hub and managed to McGuyver it with a spacer made from a spoke. The spacer is essentially a washer that sits on the axle and pushes the freehub out a bit. This also effects the engagement of the pawls so I made another washer out of a PET bottle just as a precaution to stop them slipping sideways. The seal on the freehub was also effected but it still works just. The other thing was the length of axle supporting the drop out was reduced a tad but it all works fine now. The spacer amounted to ~0.8mm.


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## Easton

Thanks Nate, this is fantastic.

We are absolutely still supporting every wheel we can, currently that includes everything back to 2005.

I'm really stoked this worked for you and we are alerting our customer service team of your success. we hadn't been recommending it as a solution because the couple of times we tried it the chain was contacting the frame when in the small cog.

Thanks for the excellent documentation.




natedg200202 said:


> drewmcg, glad you got some useful information from this thread and hope the wheels get changed over successfully for you!
> 
> Easton is dropping support for these great, old wheels. Mine won't die so I will just keep using them. Just as well - they are designed much better than the new offerings from Easton.


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