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  • Campagnolo Zonda wheelset – radial play in cassette sprockets
  • wobbliscott
    Free Member

    First ride out today on my new Zonda wheelset. I transferred over my 105 cassette from my old wheels and noticed a rattle during the ride today. After establishing it wasn’t me I traced it down to my cassette. There us a small amount of radial play in the sprockets, about a mm or two. When installing the cassette I noticed that the splines on the freewheel had a sort of cut out along their length on the non drive side of the spline. So each end of the splines were full width at their ends for a few mm, but on one side, the non drive side, there is a cut out reducing the width of the spline. This is clearly how the sprockets that are positioned over the narrower part of the spline are able to slightly rotate and rattle.

    I’ve double checked and they are the SRAM/Shimano version (I assume the Campag version would be completely different spline pattern anyway), and the only thing I did notice was etched on one of the splines were the words “11 Speed”, so not sure if that is anything to do with the cut outs on the splines (cassette compatability maybe?). So am I missing anything RE installation or do I just need to tighten up the lock ring more to clamp the cassette together more tightly to stop the radial play?

    Thanks.

    simondbarnes
    Full Member

    If you’re running 10spd then you’ll need an 11spd spacer behind the cassette. Is this present?

    lunge
    Full Member

    2nd the 11 speed spacer being missing. The wheels are new so I suspect said spacer will be in a little envelope that came with them, it certainly was with my Fulcrum wheels.

    davidtaylforth
    Free Member

    you need an 11 speed spacer and a ten speed spacer.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Well my 105 cassette is 10 speed and had a thin metal washer installed before so I transferred that over. I did need to tune my gearing again though, but they were not that far out, more of a fine tune. So I can check the spacer issue, but I’m more concerned about the narrow spline thing. It won’t take a cassette sprockets with wider mating splines as the first outboard 5mm or so of each spline is full width. It’s strange, I can’t think why the narrowing of the spline is necessary or what function it serves.

    davidtaylforth
    Free Member

    Narrowing of the spline? What do you mean?

    lunge
    Full Member

    You need the old spacer and the new one, this may well sort your gears out as well.

    Re. The splines, it makes no difference to performance as the edge the cassette pushes in is still there, I guess it just saves a bit of weight.

    gfkvelo
    Free Member

    You need to check that the cassette is correctly spaced, as per the advice above (Shimano 11s cassettes are wider than their 10s counterparts and a spacing washer is required under the 10s cassette on an 11s body also as noted above).

    Once you think you have the cassette correctly assembled on the cassette body, it’s worth checking, before you fit the lockring, that the surface of the smallest sprocket that the lockring is supposed to tighten against is “above” the end of the cassette body – otherwise ni matter how tight you assemble the lockring, it won’t compress the sprockets onto the cassette body.

    Last, turn the cassette with your hand clockwise to ensure that all the driving surfaces on all the sprockets / sprocket carriers are against the relevant surfaces of the cassette body splines and then tighten the lockring to the 40nm recommended – probably 75% of the cassette lockrings that we see in our workshops fitted by end-users (and, sadly, often other mechanics, who should know better) are nothing like tight enough. The torque given is designed to prevent any possibility of sprocket fret against the cassette body and so any damage to either the driving surfce of the cassette body spline body or to the driving surface of the cassette sprocket / carrier.

    HTH
    Graeme
    Velotech Cycling Ltd
    Campagnolo main UK SC

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Thanks, i’ll definitely check for an additional spacer, I guess if the casuist is too inboard then the lock ring might not be locking enough. Thinking about it now there is no way I should be able to waggle the sprockets radially if the lock ring is tightened up. There was a bag of gumpf that came with the wheels so i’ll take a look in that lot for another spacer. I wasn’t sure why there was a spacer/washer fitted before. I’ve never seen that before, and the previous wheelset was a 10 speed.

    David – for the record – normally the splines are parallel sided and the same width along their length. On these wheels the drive side of the spline is as normal, i.e. straight along its entire length, but in the other side it is parallel for about the first 5mm or so, then steps in making the spline narrower, before stepping out again for another few mm at the spoke end of the spline. So along the length where the spline is narrower the sprockets can waggle back and too radially a small amount. Not a problem when under power as the sprockets are all aligned as they should be, but when riding over a rough road surface some sprockets are rattling.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Thanks Graeme, i’ll follow your procedure. I’m one of those that tends to overnighted things anyway, and have, in the past, worried i’ve overtightened the lockings, but it sounds like they should be pretty tight anyway – and given they are a large diameter thread so a long length of thread to share the load they are designed to take a good amount of torque. I’ve certainly never had a problem with fretting against the cassette body, so sounds like i’ve been lucky in the past.

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    Thanks all. I had a rummage in all the gumpf that came with the wheels (typical bloke, just dives in without looking at the instructions) and found a spacer. Installed it iaw Graeme’s instructions and all is honky dory now, all sprockets are tight with no play.

    didn’t realise it was 11 speed hub, at least i’m future proofed. I guess the spline cut-outs are for weight saving, no other purpose seems apparent.

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