Saturday at about 70 miles into a century I looked down and saw a fine hairline crack forming on
the drive side crank arm. My beloved 1980 Super Record crankset is now just a very pretty paperweight.
Even though I'd filed the stress concentrating sharp edge at the base of the arm where it meets the spider long ago, the accumulated years and miles where too much. I'm just glad I saw the crack when I did, losing a crank arm at speed would be an ugly moment indeed.
So, if you're riding old Campy cranks, keep a lookout for the dreaded crack of death!

i rue the day my old campy cranks give out. already trashed one wheelset

my condolences.

any pictures? I have filed a couple sets myself and since I have 180mm (1980 also) set and 177.5mm set I think I have reason to fear they too will crack one day. The 177.5 drive side as no date code but two dots on the back of the arm (1972?) and is well used and in rough shape.

I ground a fair amount of metal out of mine with a Dremel tool, then polished it to look as close to original as possible. I continued the chamfer from the crank arm inward and checked as best I could with a jewelers loupe. Out of 4 Campy cranksets on my bikes and a couple off of them they all had cracks except the one on my super low mileage Paramount. I filed that one round.

Busting a crank really scares me, especially considering the collateral damage possibilities!

I would like to see some photos of how your filing looks here are my 177.5s...

Sadly, most things wear out in the end. At least we get to be among the priveleged few who use them to the finish.

Did that happen at once? That should be included in the definition of catastrophic failure. What did you do with the internals?

hit and run driver.

i kept all the parts, i have another set of near identical wheels.

I don't have any pics, but the job you did on your 177's looks nearly identical to what I did on my now
defunct 170's. I filed a radius similar to what you did (about 1mm radius) and finished off by polishing.
The crack looks like it's propagated about 1/3 thru the arm. It's released enough stress that the two
sides of the fracture are no longer even (in plane).

Hopefully the new Chorus replacement won't have the same destiny.

i'd say you guys could file even a bit further..
hard to see though
keep checking them regulary !

I always knew Campy stuff was overpriced; I guess it doesn't hold up either!
( humor humor humor)
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Not sure I understand. Is this failure limited to vintage campy cranks or does it extend to modern stuff as well?

I cracked a left 1990s Veloce crank across the shoulder eye, and I have heard of older Record arms snapping elsewhere, so Campag. crank failures are not limited to the infamous spider curse.

vintage campy cranks are known for failure, probably because they are well used by vintage enthusiasts... I am sure some of the campy copies would suffer the same fate (however my unfiled sugino super mighties look fine but I believe they have low miles)....

Mine looks identical!

I just got a new Chorus (aluminum) crankset to replace the failed Super Record cranks.
I'll let you know in about 26 years if there's a problem.