Ladies and gentlemen, welcome!
Being interested in vintage bicycles, I'm learning something new every day.

Today's lesson was "stack height!"

Didn't really think about that. Too late now...
I don't have the frame/fork here in the house right now, but I'd like my fellow C&V'ers expertise...

Aka, "eyeball it."

Does this look like it'll take an old Campagnolo NR headset?
Or is there too little room?
I'll be able to measure the thing by the end of the week...


Please help with advice, suggestions, etc!

Nick Skaggs
aka
Banjo_mole

I would not risk eyeballing it. You really need to measure it. Stack height of the headset needs not to be longer than the stack height of the frame. Stack height of the frame is the difference between the steer tube length (all the way down to the seat of the crown race) and the length of the head tube. If the headset stack height is a little less than this, you can add spacers between the threaded race and the locknut. If it's more, you can't really shorten the headset or lengthen the steer tube. You also need to measure with a millimeter scale.

I have a recent Tange Levin which has stack height around 30 mm, vintage Campy Record Strada (the steel ones) are around 36 mm, and vintage Campy Super Record are around 40 mm. It's not only hard to eyeball, it's nearly impossible from a bike photo.

I understand vintage Tange Levin were also in the 36 mm range, but can't confirm that.

Agreed, I wouldn't risk eye-balling it. If memory serves the NR had a fairly high stack height. However, the good news is that appears to be either a steel Campagnolo headset, or one of a million copies of it. The good news part of that is that the Tange Levin should be a direct replacement and can be ordered (if not already in stock) at most bike shops.

If thats a fairly modern Shimano headset with only 1 or 2 thin spacers the answer is NO.

If the stock headset is working don't mess with it. A headset can last damn near eternity.

Yes, i'd definitely make it the last part on your lista to change out.

If it's too short, you can always add a spacer. I have a Campy spacer on my Tange Levin (30mm). Most LBS's have some laying about. Mine gave me the Campy free.

Road Fan thank you for the clear definition of 'stack height'; I've had a fuzzy, generalized concept in the back of my one remaining brain cell and you've cleared that one up for me.

Assuming the fork hasn't been mucked with, it should work. Trek cut the forks for 42mm stack at the factory.

What kind of headset is currently installed? Why do you want to change it?

The headset is - or was, rather- an old Shimano Tri-Color headset, with cracking cups for my project bike. It was no longer any good, at all.

But the majority of posts here seem to tell me that I'm going to have to wait until the end of the week and then actually measure the thing...

Edit: I meant cracking cups, not cracking races.

If you have NO EXTRA spacers with a tri-color headset a Campy stlye will be too tall. Tri-colors are in the 37mm range...while the NR is in the 42mm range.

look. buy a campy record. If it doesn't work, I'll trade you two good tange levins for it.

Oh, poop. I'm rather sad now, I'll wait until the frame gets back from where it currently is (anonymity deliberate but probably ineffective) and measure to be sure. Maybe there's an extra spacer or two on that tri-color headset, they're just...

... invisible in the picture...

Nick

If the headset is too long, you could machine the locknut to lower it and use a thinner washer, but you'd gain no more than about 3mm IMO.

I measured, I got 35 mm.

I think it's going to be a tange levin, of course this brings the JIS/Modern European issue, along with what velo orange calles the NJS, which I presume is New Japanese Standard...

Erg. Simply put, can I put a Tange Levin on this bike without issues?

The old headset was Shimano 600.

I can't help you with which headset to buy, but NJS stands for Nihon Jitensha Shinkokai. It's the governing body for Japanese Keirin racing. The NJS stamp on bike components indicates that the organization has approved that component for use in their competitions.

just random info...

Double check the cup sizes. I had a couple of Made in Japan Schwinns that used 30.0mm headtube cups whereas the more common size is 30.2mm.

I faced this same problem 3 yrs ago. Everyone said Tange Levin was a drop-in replacement for an old steel Campy Record. Finally I measured the Record and found a 36 mm stack height. The Levin I had bought (at Yellow Jersey prices) has a stack height of 30 mm. It may be true that Levins of bygone days were 36 mm, but not today. To make this match up, I would have needed to have a spacer stack between the locknut and crown race of 6 mm total. The Tange kit came with a 2 mm spacer. Not a problem, but an additional hassle after a search that I had termed Headset Hell. I ended up buying another Campy steel Record headset, since this was for a California Masi.

Same problem with my 1984 Trek 610. The LBS that sold me the bike new had dinked around with the headset for some unknowable motivation (I hesitate to descend into the hell that would be required to imagine a "reason"), resulting in a totally non-viable mix of roller and ball bearing parts. Even worse, it took me 20 years of frustrated ownership to deal with it. I replaced it with a then-current 2004 Campy Chorus. I tend to doubt that all Treks are 42, because (I'm not really that sure of this point, sorry!) I think the Chorus had a stack height of 36 mm.

On my Woodrup I build up the bike from a bare NOS frame/fork, which measured 36 mm. Here I surprisingly found a used Tange with the 36 mm dimension, and so far so good. It may have been an old Levin, or it may have been a MA-60 from an early '80s Trek. This one looked like a steel Campy Record clone, but with the smooth outer surface of a steel Campy Pista.

I have come through Headset Hell and become reborn.

Regarding Japanese/Modern et cetera, I think the Sheldon sites contain a table that identifies the differences between them. You need to measure the pertinent dimensions of your frame with a caliper and match it up. Good enough calipers (10 ths of millimeters or thousandths of an inch) are available from Harbor Freight pretty cheap. Not gonna be a Starrett or Mitutoyo, but you'll get one that works.

If your Shimano 600 has imprints with the numbers 6207 (has the wavy threaded race and locknut) or possibly 6208, I'm pretty sure the stack height is 36 mm. I had one of those in my Mondonico when I got it, and replaced it with a modern Stronglight A9 marked as a 36 mm stack height, perfect fit.

Road Fan

What headset is currently installed? Look up the stack height and compare with Campy's.