A customer dropped off a pair of front and rear Campagnolo Zonda wheels.
Both are the final generation C15 narrow rim, not the 2WAY-FIT version.
↑The pair in the front of the image are in such beautiful condition I'd suspect they're unused,
↑while the pair in the back show clear signs of heavy use.
Both need inspection, but for the well-used Zonda pair, the customer said I could swap the rims at my discretion, and if I do, to use C17 rims. However, Zonda rims run 29,000 to 30,000 yen or so with tax included, and I didn't see any buckles or damage that would warrant replacement, so I'm going to leave the rims as-is at my discretion. In that case, the customer wants the brake zone cleaned up nicely.
This is something I haven't written about in a while, but this is what I call the eBay technique—making a used wheel look nearly new to aim for a higher sale price when putting it up for auction. So there's not much point in doing this for a wheel you plan to keep using (though admittedly, braking does improve right after the work), but since the customer requested it, I decided to go ahead.
Starting with the front wheel that looks nearly unused. The brake zone is clean, but
the spline of the freebody shows faint signs of use even with minimal riding, and
the hex hole of the axle nut's retention bolt and the splines at the end have zero dirt, suggesting that even if components were installed at some point, it was probably just for a display bike and the wheel really is unused and unridden.
The preliminary centering is dead-on, there's virtually no runout, and after truing it's still dead-centered. Since the image before and after would be identical, I didn't take a photo of the spoke gauge after work.
The valve cap was on there, so I kept it on as before, but it was cracked, so I swapped it for a new one. That's about all there is to say about this one.
Next up is the matching rear wheel. This one also shows no signs of use.
Huh? The centering is already out. I'd expected that with 10+ years of storage, the rim might have shifted to the right by a sheet of paper or two. There's more fine runout than the front wheel, but even after truing, there's no centering issue. Since the before and after images would be the same, I only shot the preliminary centering photo.
Now for the well-used front wheel. When the hub shell logo is facing right, the cone nut was on the left side. I need to remember this since I'll be disassembling non-Campagnolo hubs later.
No centering issue. There's a faint amount of runout, but considering how much wear it shows, the results are pretty solid.
Performing the eBay technique... I'm working on the brake zone with a rubber stone while applying water, and the foam in the image is diluted neutral detergent from Wako's. It's not necessary, but dirt really does come off better with it. Though it does have the downside of making the brake zone harder to see.
↑The right half of the image shows the post-work condition. The blue masking tape is applied to the valve hole to keep water out of the rim.
Before
After
I oriented things to know which side was which, then disassembled and cleaned the internals of the non-Campagnolo hub.
The right-side cone had been swapped for a silver one. This is an interesting detail—that same part number had a change from black to silver ball races for the steel ball/USB versions, and the silver version is dramatically less prone to pitting, especially in USB applications. In fact, that's the whole reason for the spec change.
Ball valve bushes are a good example of something Campagnolo occasionally does—a spec change without changing the part number. By not changing the number, you can't specifically order the old spec anymore, and over time people forget it ever existed: "Wait, black ball races that were prone to pitting? We never made those." "Valves that were hard to insert or sometimes fell out and got lost? Those don't exist." And so on.
In this case, the black cone had no pitting and the bearing was broken in nicely, but thinking long-term, I felt it was better to have matching cone hardness on both sides, so I swapped the left black cone for silver. The result is a faint cloudiness from new cone bedding marks, so the hub's spinning performance is actually down in the short term.
After reassembling the hub and finishing the truing, I checked with the spoke gauge and there was no centering issue. Comparing to the original image above, you can see how much cleaner the parts around the hub axle are from the cleaning.
Finally, the matching rear wheel. There was a functional part missing—not essential, but on the front wheel's right side, the cap washer for mounting the dust cap had disappeared, so
I replaced it.
The hub shell parts were fine, and I checked the freebody pawl springs too—no replacement needed.
↑I forgot to shoot the preliminary centering, so this is post-work, but here's what happened: preliminary centering was dead-on by chance, but this wheel had the most lateral runout of the four, so once I focused on truing the rim shifted left, then I corrected the centering with the freewheel-side spoke tension. That's the breakdown.
↑Post-work condition
↑Nearly unused front and rear wheels
↑The heavily-used front and rear wheels. From the before/after state I posted earlier, I polished the brake zone even more thoroughly. Looking at just the brake zone,
Beautiful condition ★ Only ~1000km of use
I could probably get away with that, but
the decals are falling apart. I might be better off removing them, but I'll check with the customer first. Removing them is easy enough, but if adhesive residue is left on the rim, it's extremely difficult to remove if you don't know the technique.
Both are the final generation C15 narrow rim, not the 2WAY-FIT version.
↑The pair in the front of the image are in such beautiful condition I'd suspect they're unused,
↑while the pair in the back show clear signs of heavy use.
Both need inspection, but for the well-used Zonda pair, the customer said I could swap the rims at my discretion, and if I do, to use C17 rims. However, Zonda rims run 29,000 to 30,000 yen or so with tax included, and I didn't see any buckles or damage that would warrant replacement, so I'm going to leave the rims as-is at my discretion. In that case, the customer wants the brake zone cleaned up nicely.
This is something I haven't written about in a while, but this is what I call the eBay technique—making a used wheel look nearly new to aim for a higher sale price when putting it up for auction. So there's not much point in doing this for a wheel you plan to keep using (though admittedly, braking does improve right after the work), but since the customer requested it, I decided to go ahead.
Starting with the front wheel that looks nearly unused. The brake zone is clean, but
the spline of the freebody shows faint signs of use even with minimal riding, and
the hex hole of the axle nut's retention bolt and the splines at the end have zero dirt, suggesting that even if components were installed at some point, it was probably just for a display bike and the wheel really is unused and unridden.
The preliminary centering is dead-on, there's virtually no runout, and after truing it's still dead-centered. Since the image before and after would be identical, I didn't take a photo of the spoke gauge after work.
The valve cap was on there, so I kept it on as before, but it was cracked, so I swapped it for a new one. That's about all there is to say about this one.
Next up is the matching rear wheel. This one also shows no signs of use.
Huh? The centering is already out. I'd expected that with 10+ years of storage, the rim might have shifted to the right by a sheet of paper or two. There's more fine runout than the front wheel, but even after truing, there's no centering issue. Since the before and after images would be the same, I only shot the preliminary centering photo.
Now for the well-used front wheel. When the hub shell logo is facing right, the cone nut was on the left side. I need to remember this since I'll be disassembling non-Campagnolo hubs later.
No centering issue. There's a faint amount of runout, but considering how much wear it shows, the results are pretty solid.
Performing the eBay technique... I'm working on the brake zone with a rubber stone while applying water, and the foam in the image is diluted neutral detergent from Wako's. It's not necessary, but dirt really does come off better with it. Though it does have the downside of making the brake zone harder to see.
↑The right half of the image shows the post-work condition. The blue masking tape is applied to the valve hole to keep water out of the rim.
Before
After
I oriented things to know which side was which, then disassembled and cleaned the internals of the non-Campagnolo hub.
The right-side cone had been swapped for a silver one. This is an interesting detail—that same part number had a change from black to silver ball races for the steel ball/USB versions, and the silver version is dramatically less prone to pitting, especially in USB applications. In fact, that's the whole reason for the spec change.
Ball valve bushes are a good example of something Campagnolo occasionally does—a spec change without changing the part number. By not changing the number, you can't specifically order the old spec anymore, and over time people forget it ever existed: "Wait, black ball races that were prone to pitting? We never made those." "Valves that were hard to insert or sometimes fell out and got lost? Those don't exist." And so on.
In this case, the black cone had no pitting and the bearing was broken in nicely, but thinking long-term, I felt it was better to have matching cone hardness on both sides, so I swapped the left black cone for silver. The result is a faint cloudiness from new cone bedding marks, so the hub's spinning performance is actually down in the short term.
After reassembling the hub and finishing the truing, I checked with the spoke gauge and there was no centering issue. Comparing to the original image above, you can see how much cleaner the parts around the hub axle are from the cleaning.
Finally, the matching rear wheel. There was a functional part missing—not essential, but on the front wheel's right side, the cap washer for mounting the dust cap had disappeared, so
I replaced it.
The hub shell parts were fine, and I checked the freebody pawl springs too—no replacement needed.
↑I forgot to shoot the preliminary centering, so this is post-work, but here's what happened: preliminary centering was dead-on by chance, but this wheel had the most lateral runout of the four, so once I focused on truing the rim shifted left, then I corrected the centering with the freewheel-side spoke tension. That's the breakdown.
↑Post-work condition
↑Nearly unused front and rear wheels
↑The heavily-used front and rear wheels. From the before/after state I posted earlier, I polished the brake zone even more thoroughly. Looking at just the brake zone,
Beautiful condition ★ Only ~1000km of use
I could probably get away with that, but
the decals are falling apart. I might be better off removing them, but I'll check with the customer first. Removing them is easy enough, but if adhesive residue is left on the rim, it's extremely difficult to remove if you don't know the technique.