Jicafold

So I have a set of Campy Syncro something or other shifters and I don't speak Campagnolo. Nonetheless I would like to use these but cannot get them to index, just friction. I went here:

Campagnolo Syncro II shifters ~ tears for gears

and there were good photos of the shifters and it looks like I am missing the prawl portion of the mechanism, but it is hard to tell. So here is what I have. Other than having one apparent end of one of the springs missing, what part engages the teeth? Am I missing that too?

fietsbob

BITD they <C> had a mechanics seminar to show the shop people the assembly order of all those pieces.

But I never actually held one in my hands.

Jicafold

On that web page they had this photo which looks like there are 2 other pieces on the "springs" which engage the rachet mechanism, but it is not very clear.

Crankycrank

The spring engages the teeth and if memory serves, it appears you are correct that one of the springs is broken. Not sure if you can still get parts for these but if you're determined to use them you could just make one. I had some of these back in the early 90's and could never get them to work well. They always needed a little prodding to get the chain to catch the next cog. Syncros were not Campy's finest hour. Make sure you use some good quality modern cables that don't stretch and this will help a little. The link you provided shows the order of assembly and "The Syncro Rainbow" link gives a little bit of info about the different colored teethed rings non of which ever worked for me no matter what freewheel I used.

Jicafold

Hmmm, yes I see. However, even if I make a replacement spring, which seems easy enough, am I still missing some parts? How does the spring actually engage the teeth?

gfk_velo

The springs are the same as the current "G" or "P" springs (depending on your alphabetic persuasion).
IIRC, you need a pair of EC-RE219 ... the original part, SL-RE009 is long gone, however, the last generation of bar-end shifter before the current "return to centre" design was basically a late version Synchro lever on a special fitting and that uses EC-RE2019, so it has to be worth a try.

Synchro in it's various incarnations was a valiant attempt but until the very late versions it was doomed to failure. Basically Campagnolo tried, by using a whole series of different inserts, to come up with an index system that would work with virtually any of their RDs, on any chain, on almost any freewheel, 6, 7 or 8s.

Synchro 1 and 2 used various different colour inserts to get different cable pull ratios, for different amounts of RD movement, required for various combinations of RD, freewheel and chain. Your insert looks to be 6 speed and either silver or white ... I no longer have access to the key that would tell me what gear / freewheel / chain combo that was for but I'd hazard a guess, single parallelogram, Shimano 6s narrow freewheel (or Suntour Ultra, or at a push, Regina Synchro) and a Sedis chain *might* work - no promises though!

I never got Synchro 1 to work in a satisfactory way at all, Synchro 2 was OK-ish with the later drop parallelogram rear gears, 7s Maillard freewheels and Sedis chains and the late version Synchro 10s were fine ...

It looks like you have all the parts there, the broken springs that you have a missing some bits - if you look at the new springs you will see that they have a "tail" that locates into the drillings in the lever so that the springs can sit concentrically inside the lever housing, sandwiched between the lever body and the toothed insert, as in the pic from Tears for Gears ...

Have a look at
https://www.campagnolo.com/media/file...994_part_B.pdf
Page 15 for a late version exploded diagram ...

<In bocca di lupo>, as they say in Italy ..!

Dave Mayer

Both springs are bust and have to be replaced. The first and second generations of Ergopower levers used these springs, so replacements are not that hard to find. But I don't know if your shifters require the right or left-handed versions. They came in 2 types - mirror images one for the right hand Ergopower lever, and one for the left. The right-hand downtube shifter might not use the right-side Ergopower lever springs, but possibly the left. Replacement springs should cost south of $12 for the pair.

You have 6 notches in your ratchet ring; this implies 6-speed indexed shifting. But for what rear derailleur? There were several rings with different spacing for different rear derailleurs. No, different derailleurs do not behave identically when it comes to travel. You have to match the cable pull, and the deralleur and the cog spacing to make indexing work.

My recommendation: install some $15 Shimano 7-speed downtube shifters, a $15 Hyperglide clone 7-speed freewheel, and a cheap but relatively current Shimano derailleur and be done with it. And I am a Campy guy.