changing 7S to 8Speeds on a 3S internal rear hub - I'm confused (as usual)
 

I am trying to get my wife's recently acquired Bike Friday up to speed.
I got it third hand and so there are some odd bits to it.

When acquired last week it was set up like this:
Shimano 600 RD.
Internal 3S rear hub (heavy but obviates the need for a FD)
7S rear Shimano Hyperglide cassette.

But, oddly, it had Campy Daytona brifters. (and when I tested the RH brifter it was a 9S so evidently the previous owner had been I presume throttled it back to 7S with the limit screws. I am surprised it would even shift cleanly with a 9S brifter.)

the bike apparently dates from 2009, so the 7S rear cassette befuddles me.

my first thought was to just swap it out for at least 8S.

however, my 8S Shimano cassettes, while they fit the splines on the body, stand out one cog too proud. the 8th cog doesn't grab and I cannot lock it on.

can anyone
A) ID this rear hub? (it might be a generic Sachs knockoff)
but more importantly
B) advise me on what kind of cassette this requires.
were 7S bodies incompatible with 8S cassettes?

thinking maybe that there was a spacer knocking out the 8th cog, I removed the large flange you see in the series of photos. But, I think in retrospect that is more of a dust cover than a spacer (as I can see the ball bearings in the hub when it is removed.)

many thanks as always.

Peter

Since it presumably worked with the 7 speed cassette, my inclination would be to leave it at that. There may be a good reason for their choice.

Looks like a seven speed freehub body -- can't tell due to the bokeh effect. Maybe it can be swapped.

Does the cassette fit when the spacer is removed?

Having a Bike Friday that hub only take a 7 speed cassette. Sachs makes a newer hub that will take an 8 but that would be very expensive to change over to for 3 extra gears. Roger

Maybe I should check the actual build date with BF, but my own BF dates from my 40th birthday and that was 17 years ago so, 1997. And it came with a Sachs internal 3S rear hub with a Shimano 105 8S setup.

So I am surprised that this -- if it was from 2009 -- would come standard (and restricted to) 7S .

I might well just leave it well enough alone at 7S (which is exactly what my wife said of course - "why are you messing with it?")
but I was curious to see if it could not be easily optimized.
I didn't even know there existed a 7S Freehub. I thought it all started with 8S minimum.

What a fun weird setup. 7-speed cassettes still exist and are available. 7s freehubs not so much - instead the narrower cassette is mounted on the 8s freehub with a spacer. My BIL's recent Trek 3700 was built this way. Good upgrade for a 7s bike with a broken axle.

All kinds of fun combinations of shifters and cassettes are possible, as per this article and this article. Remember if you got 9 clicks then it's a 10 speed.

Sachs Germany made the 3 by 7 speed at the time SRAM Bought them out and shipped the factory tools to Asia-Taipei.

Get the wheel rebuilt around the new 8x3 or 9 speed hub and sell the 7 speed. some one else will appreciate it

it would be nifty if its a standard freehub
nifty but unlikely

those articles are terrifically helpful.
Now I understand (or am starting to) why someone put 9S Campy shifters on a 7S shimano cassette. Cause they match pretty well.

Measuring this 3x7 Freehub body, I also see that this one is only about 31mm deep (or wide) while another 8S hub I have measures about 35mm. So, they must have been different animals.

I will mull this before messing things up further.
I might investigate whether I can swap the 7S body for an 8S body.

But thanks for the help all.

Shimano Uniglide came in 6 speed.

Shimano 600EX cassettes started with 5 speed in the early '80's. I've never seen one- why would anyone want a 5 speed when you could have 6?

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/shimano1982/images/24.jpg

Why change anything at all? You don't mention that it's having problems.

Wow! Pretty HF hubs. I suppose they have been hunted to extinction?

Are you sure it's a 7-speed cassette?
New options open up of you run a truncated cassette on a shorter freehub body. 8-of-9 on a 7-speed body is a well known trick. 7-of-8 or 7-of-9 ought to offer similar options.

To what end? The three additional ratios above the twenty-one you already have will likely be redundant or nearly so. It seems like a lot of work for little gain. If you need higher or lower gears outside of the ones you have 7 speed cassettes are available with various large and small cog combinations (mountain vs road) so a cassette change may accomplish that. "Never Fix A Running Piece" is often a sound course.

I just happen to have a spare Sachs hub with the 7 speed in the basement. As said above the high and low gear will be the same on both a 7 or an 8 hub. You will have 3 more redundant gears some place in the middle. If you feel the need to spend some money there are better places to do it. Roger

If it's a standard Shimano fit, the body itself is a direct swap. But as you have noticed, the 8s is longer. Usually this means that you have to shuffle some spacers around, and redish the wheel. And there's usually a bit of difference between 7 and 8S seals /dust shields. Unless you replace cones etc as well, be ready to have to either apply some ingenuity or to accept a poorer seal.

We're thread-jacking, but that's how I bowl.

I've never seen the 600EX high-flange cassette hubs in the wild. I'd love to find some.

so, am I understanding this table correctly, that a 9S Campy shifter is more compatible with a Shimano 7S cassette than an 8S Shimano shifter?
if so, that I expect would explain why it had a 9S Campy shifter in the first place.

Of course, if that is the case then I have also made a muddle of things by assuming (wrongly) that the 3x and 9S Campy shifters were just some aberration that a Campy lover tossed onto the thing, that that I should swap them out for Shimano.

Well, this cassette definitely has 7 sprockets on it. And it does not appear to be long/wide/deep enough to accept any of my spare 8S cassettes.
and the hub body (as I think I wrote) measures about 31mm compared to the 35mm of some of my other shimano hub bodies that presently sport 8sprockets.

Can you direct me to some info on squeezing 8 sprockets onto a 31mm deep hub body?

This whole exercise started off because I assumed (never assume right?) that a 3x9S Campy Daytona shifter set with a Shimano 600 RD and a 7S Shimano hub must have been a mistake. and that to correct it I should move to an all Shimano setup. and that would mean minimum 8S Shimano shifter.

I also thought (and on reflection I am realizing I think that this is stupid and also wrong) that the LH 3x Daytona shifter with its muliple clicks up AND down was less appropriate for a 3speed internal rear hub (which really only needs 3 distinct clicks to move up and down.) And in my experience Shimano 3S LH brifter had a cleaner CLick-CLick-Click when going Low to High on a traditional FD and so Shimano would work better with an internal 3S hub than Campy.

Was that 2nd assumption wrong?
If so, to heck with it, I'll just put the Daytona back on.

The only other reason I started messing with this is that there is a bit of play in the 7S cassette as installed. (Maybe it needs another spacer for the lock ring to clamp it down snugly)

But as I said, I started off confused anyway.

I enjoy the idea and have read up on it but have not had a chance to try it. The combination you usually hear of is a campy 10s shifter with shimano RD and 8s cassette

but its not, its the extended driver of a 3 speed IGH. that is made to use Shimano/sram cogs on it.

Wait, are you saying you're shifting the IGH with a brifter?

That's not a good idea, even if it's a left-hand ergo shifter. IGHs are designed to be used with the specific shifters made for them, and not all of them have the same length of cable pull between each gear, so no indexed shifter will work with them. If you go between two gears with a derailleur, either because something isn't adjusted or you're using the wrong shifter/derailleur combination, you get noisy running and maybe the chain trying to jump between gears. If you do it with an IGH, you can round the corners off internal parts, or even break them.

The great Sheldon Brown used to friction-shift an old (as in I believe 1950's, when they were in their heyday) Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub, but he was able to judge where he was with the internal mechanism of the hub by the angle of the shift lever, and was also using a hub which is a) easily serviced with good parts availability and b) built to outlast about any bike component short of maybe a Schwinn Varsity.

LH Brifter with IGH = trouble?
 

That's correct. But I am listening to what you are saying. You make good points.

I didn't think it unusual or risky, because my own Bike Friday (circa 1997) with Sachs 3S IGH came factory setup with a SHimano 105 triple LH brifter. And it has worked flawlessly since (though it only gets... about... 1-2000km a year max.)

So, when I found this 2nd BF with IGH for my wife, and it had a Triple Campy LH brifter, I didn't think anything of it.

SO, now I am really confused.

What should I be using for a 3S IGH with a 7S cassette? with dropbars?

Checking the Bike Friday website, I see an listing for an old 2nd hand bike similar to my wife's with a similar setup (Daytona). They might have been using that standard back then (2009 I think)

"#8768
PRE-OWNED: An older but totally functional and unique SRAM Dual Drive (actually their Spectro, the previous model to the Dual Drive) drop bar bike. This one is being controlled by Campagnolo Daytona Ergo Integrated shifters. The rest of the drivetrain is also Italian Daytona. This is a great touring set up that you can no longer get, Dual Drive and drop bars. It can ship in two weeks. "