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Vent: A customer's vintage Campagnolo derailleur snapped its spring mid-shift in my stand.
I was in the middle of a tune-up when it popped, and I had to call three shops before finding a donor part from an old 80s bike. Has anyone else had luck with a specific aftermarket spring for these?
3 comments
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kevin_schmidt976mo ago
Sometimes the fix is just admitting the part is too old. Those springs get brittle from decades of stress, so even a donor might fail soon. The real solution is telling the customer their classic piece is now a wall decoration.
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andrewt416mo ago
Wait, you actually found a donor spring from the 80s? That's wild luck. Kevin_schmidt97 is right about the brittleness though, that donor might be just as old and tired. Bending a new one from a paperclip sounds like a special kind of shop nightmare.
7
lunar476mo ago
Honestly, that spring is the reason I keep a box of "maybe someday" parts that just taunts me. I spent a whole afternoon once trying to bend a new spring from a hardware store paperclip, which went about as well as you'd guess. Finding a donor is the real win, I've never seen a true aftermarket fix that didn't involve more luck than skill.
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