Cyclist0108

My wife has a Sirrus Carbon Comp. We are trying different bars to make her more comfortable, and the latest attempt involves some Jones bars that required me to put on some longer shifter cables and housing. The shift cables run inside the frame.

So in blissful ignorance I yanked the old cables out, and when trying to thread the new ones in, realized the tactical error I had made.

I watched a GCN video suggesting things like magnets and sucking the cable through with a vacuum cleaner.

I thought if I took the crank and BB off, I could fish it out through the bottom-bracket shell, but it is sealed with a threaded insert, so that ain't gonna work either.

I'm about to go humiliate myself at the LBS, but wondered if anyone has some advice when I have one more crack at this in the morning.

JoeTBM 

use an old brake or shift wire to fish through frame, patience is key

DiabloScott

A length of copper wire with enough stiffness to probe the exit hole from the inside. Once you got that through, slide in the liner guide you should've put in before you took the cable out.

Then... never do that again.

Kimmo 

Using a new cable (you need the weld on the end), put like a 20 degree bend a couple of inches from the end. Poke it in, and when you hit a snag, twirl it. When you reach the exit hole, it's gonna take a lot of patience unless you're lucky.

One thing you really should do is buy some sleeve from eBay beforehand; you just thread it through the frame over the cable before you remove it. Sometimes though, there'll be a snag or two inside you have to get past, which can occasionally be a deal breaker, forcing one into your current situation.

If you have just a short bit of sleeve, like what you can pull from a V-brake noodle, you can poke it in the exit hole to catch the end of the cable.

cpach

Try guiding the cable using a strong magnet, aided by careful bike positioning.

Also it may be easier to insert a cable from the back of the bike, remove the fork and headset, and tape it to the cable from the shifter.

Something like the park internal routing kit is useful.

Internal routing can be a real pain, but hey keeps me in a job. A tip — if you struggle for more than five minutes walk away and try again later—seems to always help

Last ride 76 

I'm not saying anything against magnet method. Works on my aero DT shifting funny bike (straight internal cable run).




***** This got me around the sealed BB insert sleeve in my Kestrel 400, a bike truly infamous for this problem. (Solution is faster than it may appear.)

1) I interwove the end of 50 cm unwaxed floss with the end of the new cable (think of splicing a rope- Google for image if in doubt) and twisted the cable back tight.
2) Fed the floss into the internal cable port, pushing it with the cable end.
3) Pushed the cable as far as I could (where it bumped against the bb insert).
4) Used shopvac at the exit port to suck floss out, took 2 seconds.
5)Used floss to pull cable through.
Result: Macguyver Rules!

I love internal cabling, now that I know how to deal with it. It looks so F*ing Cool! It is that cool.

Marcus_Ti

Life is too short to fight internal cable routing. Let the pros earn their keep.

sdmc530

AMEN....I have many bikes but only made the mistake of buying one with internal routing. When that needs any cable/routing work done it goes right to the shop, I don't even mess with it. The rest I do myself. Just not worth the frustration to me.

Cyclist0108

Can I bring it to you after I fail at it some more today? (You will have to remind me which place you work.)

I have the sleeves from the original install, and some mint-flavored, waxed dental floss, a shop vac and a rare-earth magnet of biblical proportion, so what better way to squander one of the nicest days yet (at least in Bonny Doon)?

Marcus_Ti

Last time I needed a cable/housing job on my Seven with its 3T Aeronova...I think the tab was $40. Well worth not sweating and swearing.

Cyclist0108

I just got the front to work! No tricks, the tube just came out the other end. (I got to do it twice, since it slipped away the first time.)

Cyclist0108

It is hubris, rather than cheapness, that is (one of many) of my fatal flaws.

3alarmer 

...on all my internally rouited cable frames, it's pretty easy to get the cable to go in the entry hole, and if it's pointed in the right direction, it eventually runs on past the exit hole. You can see it there, giving you a smug look and saying, "go on, try and make me hit the exit hole".

At that point, I reach in with a cleverly designed, homemade device manufactured from very thin gauge single strand steel wire, something on the order of those needle threaders that people use for threading sewing machine needles, back out the cable until the end is back past my device, and run it forward again a short distance. Here's a picture of a needle threader and my best wishes in your endeavor. You usually need a bigger wire loop than a standard needle threader...but if your frame tube diameter is small enough, sometimes even that will work.

DiabloScott

That looks like the thing that came in my boot camp sewing kit.
USN1979RTCOrlando

fietsbob

It is a sewing needle threading aid.

Cyclist0108

2/3 the way there.

davidad

A fellow I rode with 20 years ago haad an Itailin custom bike with the three cables (two shifters and one brake) going onto the head tube. It looked great. Glad I've never had one!

fietsbob

If frame is not steel, but the cable is ferrous enough, a magnet can pull it through..

Cyclist0108

Got it.

I used the vacuum cleaner trick with some dental floss tied to the ends of the tube for the last one.

As luck would have it, the housing is about 2 or 3 cm too long. Grrr.

FiftySix

From the looks of that, it sure is for a mighty large needle.

fietsbob

Found web pictures tend to enlarge like that..

FiftySix

Indeed. Was poking a bit of fun since I know what size those things really are.

FiftySix

Congrats on getting the job done. I've learned a lot from this thread.

Is the long cable housing still usable, though?

TimothyH

I don't know why an middle class American with a little bit of discretionary income would work on anything to the point they are suicidal, even if it is just melodramatic metaphor.

Another thread somewhere here starts with "RAGE!" and goes on about internal niples. I'd walk away long before I got to that.


-Tim-

Darth Lefty 

If the inmates in the Sacramento jail can pass drugs and love notes through the toilets using forks and linen, you can surely deal with a little cable in a tube