Tom Dalton wrote:
>
(cut)
> Also, we should consider which of the changes at the commonly accepted CPSC timeframe of 1978 were truly made to address a new requirement. The often cited "plastic trumpety thingies" on the rear ders are probably not a CPSC thing. They are there to guide the screwdriver to the slot, as in whilst hanging out of a car window trying to get your rider's bike to reach the 13t cog. The curved QR too... that was around before CPSC, in the form of the block lettered curved handle. This goes way back according to The Timeline, and according to Chuck was a common cool-guy mod applied to flat QRs. It could be that Campy simply decided to start curving the road QR levers because the end users were doing it themselves. What really reinforces this idea in my mind is that Campy made these levers for a long time, but at some point added the "open" and "closed" markings on the outside and inside of the curves. Now *that* is almost certainly a CPSC change.
=====================================
My opinion would be that the plastic trumpety thingies _are_ a CPSC modification to protect us from ourselves and not a modification to help race mechanics hanging out of the windows of support cars to adjust derailleurs.
The thing that has always amazed me is that Campagnolo made all the CPSC changes to all their parts not just the ones destine for export to the USA. I've always heard that back then (I don't know about now) the USA wasn't that huge a part of their market.
The curved QR lever that Campagnolo made in 1967 (shown in Cat. 15) was only for the track hubs and was not offered on the road hubs nor was there a part number shown for the curved QR lever in the catalog. Maybe the reason guys bent their own was that they weren't offered for sale separately from Campagnolo? Note that the track QR lever has an extremely tight curve that is very easy to id as different from the later road ones.
The track hubs with the curved QR levers are not in the following year's catalog (1968 Cat. 16).
The curved road QR levers with the block letter "CAMPAGNOLO" and stamped "LOCKED" and "UNLOCKED" on opposite sides are for the 1978 CPSC mandated changes and is Campagnolo modifying their surplus straight levers to curved levers, in my opinion. The earlier track QR lever has an extremely tight curve and it is very easy to id these as different from these later CPSC road, curved QR levers.
These block letter, locked/unlocked, curved QR levers are pretty rare to find in my experience. The ones I have are on a hub set with lock nuts stamped "CAMP 77".
Anyone else have an original set of hubs with these QR levers? Want to undo the lock nuts to check for a date?
Chuck Schmidt South Pasadena, Southern California
.