Donald Gillies wrote:
> I remember hearing a lot of hype about what a great headset the Tange
> Levin was in the 1970's, and how it looked just like campagnolo, with
> a channel cut and the name "Tange Levin Japan" printed into the upper
> and lower channels, and on the top locknut.
>
> Well, I was working on a campy headset and found the bottom race was
> pitted. So, i took down a NOS tange levin i have for a japanese bike
> restoration and tried fitting the crown race into the campy cup, to
> see if a modern tange crown would work. oh, it fit all right, with
> about 2-3mm of gap between the race and the cup! same gap for the
> upper race!
>
> "This cannot be" i thought, so i tried putting my campagnolo crown
> race into the tange levin AND IT FIT LIKE A GLOVE.
>
> I think a better term would be "Tange Open-Air Headset", at least for
> these vintage models. I would think that water penetration would be
> quite likely with these headsets.
We had a discussion about this last year; I even took a picture to illustrate the issue:
http://www.os2.dhs.org/
The Levin is a fine headset, provided you use the Levin cups with the Levin races. If you mix 'n' match you will have a problem. The reason for the mismatch is that the Levin headset is designed to use 5/32" balls, whereas the Campy Strada headset uses 3/16" balls. The Levin crown race may be a suitable replacement for a Campy Pista or Gran Sport crown race, however, as these models also use 5/32" balls.
--
-John Thompson (john@os2.dhs.org)
Appleton WI USA