Campagnolo Error?

This is a rare beast - faulty Campagnolo manufacture.

It is difficult to see in this image, and in fact I didn't notice it when at first I stripped and repacked the bearings.

Can you see it?

This is the faulty hub.

This is a normal hub.

It will help if I show it from a different angle.


This is the faulty hub ...

... and this is a normal hub.

Seen from this angle it is obvious that the holes in the flanges are directly opposite one another whereas they should be offset.
















When I build a rear wheel I tend to start with the drive side.  For this wheel I was using Alpina spokes - 292mm DS - and everything laced up nicely.

However, when I came to thread the spokes from the other side they did not line up correctly.  At first I thought I was doing something stupid and took it all apart and started again but I got the same result.  The last thing I suspected was faulty hub drilling.

I decided to try and build the wheel anyway.  It would require three different length spokes - 292mm for the drive side and the 290mm and 302mm for the non-drive. While it tightened up and trued ok, it was hardly the ideal rear wheel so I dismantled it.

The black spokes are as they should be in a standard 3X wheel. 292mm.

The fault with this hub became apparent when I tried to thread the NDS spokes.  Red spokes (290mm) are 6mm shorter than they should be (black) while blue spokes (302mm) are 6mm longer than they should be.


I wrote to Campagnolo about this hub and got this reply, "Those hubs are fine. The are 30 years old. The holes are not aligned, you can’t see it, because the difference is very small but they are ok"  - ah, no, sorry Mr Campagnolo; this is a fault.