# Poor shifting Veloce/ Centaur Ultrashift



## ericjacobsen3 (Apr 27, 2007)

My nearly imperceptible click '09 Veloce Ultrashift worked OK for about a year (~3000 miles) and has been unacceptable on a couple of different bikes. The shifter guts pivot allen screw is stripped so I cannot take apart until I get a dremel tool to make a flathead slot.

I've regreased cables, tried 11-spd Chorus from my other bike, have the HALF question mark shaped (stronger) Veloce spring and it still works like crap. 

So, does anyone have >3000k miles on Veloce/Centaur Ultrashift that is still working well? Has anyone had bad shifting, then installed the firm click kit or done any kind of rebuild and found any improved shifting?


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## bikerjulio (Jan 19, 2010)

there's been a bit written here about similar problems with '09 Centaur. I have a $40 kit on order to resolve. don't know enough about Veloce to say if this will work for you. perhaps study the parts manual online at the Campy site?


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## ericjacobsen3 (Apr 27, 2007)

OK, so I coerced my wife into giving me my Dremel tool present early, which I used to slot the stripped allen screw inside my lever to get it apart. 

So, I know why my Veloce Ultrashift shifting is terrible. With the bottom washers and click plates one can see that turning the shaft has a large amount of friction not easily overcome by the derailleur spring. 

So, what is causing the friction? At first I thought it was the bushing (no bearings in veloce of course) but a number of parts were clamped together with the top bolt. I assembled without the finger lever return spring and No Friction! Somehow the spring was at fault.

The finger lever return spring hook was super close to hitting the aluminum cap, so I ground the hook a fraction of a millimeter. Still had lots of friction.

So, the finger lever spring is clearly the culprit. The friction could be the spring jamming sideways and rubbing on the top cap (and the shaft and the U shaped finger lever base piece). In this case even the bearing equipped Chorus and Record would be prone to the same problem.

The other possibility is that the finger lever spring is just jamming the entire post to the side and the friction is coming from the bushings themselves which lie 10mm or so below the spring. Putting a bit of side load on the lever, it is clear friction quickly develops but I cannot say for sure if the friction is in the bushing. The one idea I have is to wrap the spring in teflon tape (need to buy) to see if that lowers the spring-alum cap friction. So far lots of grease has not helped.

So, the bottom line is that this 1 yr old Veloce lever has a whole bunch of friction that the cable must overcome to move to a smaller cog, and it is caused by the lever return spring side force reacting on the lever body. 

If I cannot find a solution my backup is already ordered Ribble $66 Xenon 10 speed older style Ergo that worked great (no friction at least) in the 9-speed version on my other bike.


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## C-40 (Feb 4, 2004)

*wrong approach...*

It's highly unlikely that the finger lever spring is the problem. That spring is not very strong and merely returns the finger lever to the start position. You should take the whole thing apart, including complete removal of the finger lever, then you can check the bushing and main pivot shaft for friction. I did this when I converted a Centaur 10 speed to 11 speed, using parts from a trashed Record shifter. It's not hard at all. I put some light grease on the bushing and shaft, then reassembled. It's just as easy to operate as a Record lever.


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## ericjacobsen3 (Apr 27, 2007)

*wrong reply....*

C40, I get it now, the fake arrogance game thing on the titles. Of course it has to be fake because no one could be that arrogant. Just for you I will play along with my own fake arrogant titles. It sure is fun seeing people get worked up on the internet just because of our fun arrogance, and also to see them think all engineers are arrogant based on our two examples. 

Now that we are done playing, it is obvious that my original approach was the recommended one: to disasseble the top. As I noted with only the top assembled there originally from the factory but after a year of use*WAS FRICITON* when the top was reassembled w/o spring *NO FRICTION.* Ergo: spring or forces from the spring cause the friction (pardon the pun).

To put some numbers on the problem, I assembled the the top normally and put the nautilus part only on the bottom (no click plates). Pulling the cable straight out the lever body hole there was a high 800g of force needed to turn the cam to loosen, which is the force needed from the rear derailleur. Assembling the same way without the spring (still w/ lever assembled on top) there was <50 grams of friction. A rear derailleur pulls about 2kg of force but this can be reduced to <800g in all the housing and lever guide to give crappy shifting.

So, the problem is related to the spring or the spring anchor tab or hook pushing the post over and binding the bushing. The spring doesn't look bent (and had friction before ever being disassembled), but might be pinching the aluminum cap. A few tweaks to the spring to keep off the post hasn't changed anything. I suppose I could try to buy a new spring if they are sold separatelly, but do not show separate in the small parts manual. If it is the spring binding the bushing, the Chorus/Record levers we could expect to have fewer problems, which seems to be the case. 

Old school Xenon is coming as a replacement, but I would love not to have to deal with quickshift....


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## C-40 (Feb 4, 2004)

*duh...*

That wasn't fake arrogance, it was simply my opinion that the finger lever spring is not to blame for a friction problem. Apparently you don't have the smarts to diagnose a simple problem. There must be something rubbing where it's not supposed to be. 

I read nothing about you removing the main pivot shaft and lubing the shaft and bushing or verifying that there was no fit problem between the shaft and bushing. That's where I would start. My Centaur lever has a 2-piece plastic bushing with a hex-shaped outside. It does not create any significant friction. The bushing comes out easily for lubing and inspection. I've read that there might be metal bushings in some models. A metal bushing without enough lube could gall and cause friction.

One user complained that the end of his shift cable rubbed on the inside of the ergo body. A little filing on the cable end should have fixed that quickly.

Another user found that there was simply no lube between the index disc and ball retainer plate. A little oil fixed that friction problem. I found that to be the case with some very early model levers.

I've got no clue what you're talking about with regard to quick shift. All levers made after 2007 are QS. It's merely a reduction in the dead travel from the lever finger lever and there is nothing to deal with.

If you're ready to trash the lever, send it to me and I'll tell you what's really wrong with it. I've got all of the parts from my Centaur shifters that could serve as replacements except for the bushing. That part is not sold separately. If the bushing or pivot shaft are faulty, the only source for spare parts is other wreck damaged levers. The cost of buying an EC-CE100 assembly is far too high to be cost effective. New levers would be a far better value.

FWIW, the only reports I've read about the bushing equipped Campy shifters have been positive. Campy has used bushings in Centaur and lower level shifters for a long time.


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## CheapSkate (Feb 26, 2012)

(thread dredge)

If anyone's interested, I had a similar problem with my 2010 Veloce Ultra Shift levers and found this post incredibly helpful.

I broke the right finger lever return spring. Replaced it with one I salvaged. Found that the repaired lever had poor shifts on the thumb button - the RD wouldn't pull the cable through properly. 

I did some diagnosis and found as the OP says. The finger lever return spring coils a couple of times around the "top hat" which is attached to the spindle. The finger lever return spring can rub on that top hat creating some friction and preventing good thumb button shifts. In particular the ends of the spring (where it plugs into the housing and hooks onto the finger lever) seem to be the culprits. I think the spring distorts when it's under tension and can be not quite concentric with the top hat. Causing a rub.

I had some fine (2 mm?) teflon tube sold for radio controlled models. I'm not sure that it really is teflon, but that's how it was described on eBay. Anyway I cut a couple of 20 mm lengths and threaded them onto the spring, one at each end of the spring. Reassembled the lever and it's much better.

I expect cable housing would do just as well, just the inner liner.

I've done some experimenting on my other levers and yes, this does seem to be a problem in some cases, and the fix seems to be a bit of low friction plastic on the spring. Some trial and error needed.

I expect you could also bend the spring as OP tried, but as he found it could be hit and miss. I'd be worried about breaking the spring too.

I'm sure other possibilities exist. Not sure if this problem is common, or if it persists in current levers.

cheers

CheapSkate


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## CheapSkate (Feb 26, 2012)

Just to dredge even more, I ordered a replacement lever body (part number EC-CE100) and it seems to have a new design compared to mine. In particular the cable bush is a different shape, the body moulding around the cable routes is subtly different, and the screws are now Torx not hex head. This new lever seems to have lower internal friction than my old ones. Maybe this is a one off, or part of the redesign. I've not tried it on a bike yet.


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## cs1 (Sep 16, 2003)

CheapSkate said:


> Just to dredge even more, I ordered a replacement lever body (part number EC-CE100) and it seems to have a new design compared to mine. In particular the cable bush is a different shape, the body moulding around the cable routes is subtly different, and the screws are now Torx not hex head. This new lever seems to have lower internal friction than my old ones. Maybe this is a one off, or part of the redesign. I've not tried it on a bike yet.


Probably a redesign. I would hate to believe fixing a problem was a one off. But who knows.


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## bikerjulio (Jan 19, 2010)

Although @cheap says he has 2010 shifters, I wonder if they are really 2009. It's not like Campy punches the year onto them.

To summarize the issues with the 2009 Ultrashift levers:

1. very soft action on all shifters.

2. internal friction would cause upshift hangups on some. too close tolerances would allow the cable end to rub the inside of the housing.

There was a running change in late 2009, and Campy briefly released an upgrade kit for unhappy owners, like me.

The primary changes were:

1. new cable spool that recessed the head more.

2. new detent disk.

And as a related comment, the move to hide the parts diagrams and sell only complete sub-assemblies has allowed Campy to make running changes without us knowing unless we do dissassembly and comparison. So quite possibly there have been further changes since the 2010 upgrade.


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## CheapSkate (Feb 26, 2012)

Yeah I'm not sure

This post 

Rebuilding Campagnolo 11 shifters

from gfk_velo says there were actually 3 versions of 11s Ultra-Shift levers. My (uninformed) guess is the same is true of the 10s Ultra-Shift levers:-

Mark I (2009????) - 
white cable bush, cable end could drag on housing, feeble clicks

Mark II (late 2009 early 2010????) - 
black cable bush, redesigned detent discs for stronger click, hex head screws, lever body same or nearly so

Mark III (date????) -
cable bush redesigned again, new lever body shape around cable entrances, Torx head screws (plus other changes????)

It might be that the Mark III levers are in fact current 11s lever bodies (eg Chorus) with just the detent discs swapped?? Demand for EC-CE100s is probably quite low, it might be more cost effective to grab an 11s lever body, gut it and replace the detent discs rather than maintaining manufacture of a whole separate 10s lever body. A wild guess:- I'm not sure how much the 11s lever design has evolved in six years.

I think my original crop of levers were all Mark IIs because they all have black cable bushes and nice strong clicks. I think the new replacement EC-CE100 unit I just bought is a Mark III because of the above differences. It feels similarly clicky to my Mark IIs off the bike.

Guesswork but there you go. Still not tried my Mark III (if that's what it is) on a bike.

(edited out stupid idea)


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## CheapSkate (Feb 26, 2012)

Tried new lever on a ride. I think it has a stronger click on the shifts. More like the old G spring shifters. I like it. I don't think it changes the shifting performance, it just feels nice. I've ordered a couple more as spares.

(deleted)


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## CheapSkate (Feb 26, 2012)

Final word, talking to myself I suppose, someone might find this useful.

I did extensive tests on the "noodle" housing to the RD on a "conventional" externally routed bike. I kept the same brand new Campagnolo Ultra Low Friction housing on the handlebar portion and the same brand new Campagnolo cable throughout the tests.

I swapped in four different "noodles" all brand new and all 330 mm long. 

I used my circa 2010 Centaur carbon short cage RD:-
CAMPAGNOLO CENTAUR 10 SPEED REAR DERAILLEUR

For each "noodle" I tried the Campagnolo "1 kg lift test" where you hang 1 kg from the cable under the lever with the chain off:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umKMVjLhmE4

The noodles were:-
a - 330 mm brand new shiny Campag precut noodle doesn't say Ultra Low Friction & Campag metal ferrules. 
b - 330 mm brand new matte Campag precut noodle does say Ultra Low Friction (the ones which do take the ferrule) & Campag metal ferrules. 
c - 330 mm brand new Jagwire LEX gear housing carefully cut off the roll & cheap plastic ferrules. 
d - 330 mm brand new Campag Ultra Low Friction BRAKE housing cut carefully off a long portion & no ferrules.

All four noodles would lift 800 g in the test but would not lift 1000 g. With 1000 g the RD would run out of steam around the smallest cogs (12t, 13t, 14t).

I then swapped the RD for a "new shape" 2015 Veloce mid cage (still no chain):-
Veloce Rear Derailleur - Components Campagnolo

This RD would lift 1000 g in the lift test but would not lift 1100 g.

Conclusions

* I wasn't able to discern any difference between housing brand or type (brake or gear). They are all much of a muchness.
* the "new shape" RDs have a stronger cable pull spring than the "old shape". Particularly for small cogs.

If you are having sticky shifting problems, maybe the "new shape" RD would help you.

(PS I'm not necessarily advocating cheap plastic ferrules or using brake housing on the road, I just wanted to test cable friction)


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