SoccerBallXan

Hello Forum Friends,

Excuse my novice questions, but I need some help identifying if a braze on located on the bottom bracket of a Benotto bike serves any purpose. Also, I notice the drive side chainstay seems potentially filed down or repaired, but I cannot tell by comparison to photos online. Do y’all have any expert opinions or answers?

Jeff Wills

In the top photo, it looks like there is a guide for the front derailleur cable which is broken off. Both cables should run parallel to the down tube from the shifter bosses. This isn't the case due to the broken guide.

In the bottom photo, the flattened portion of the chainstay is for cog clearance with larger cogs. It's meant to be that way.

FWIW: the rear derailleur cable housing needs to have a different ferrule so it is held square to the braze on. There should be a little spigot that fits in the eye of the braze-on. I would find something like the Shimano SP40 ferrule:
https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...&category=1613

SoccerBallXan

Jeff,

Thank you for your response, your insight is very helpful. Is there any *Simple* way to go about repairing the cable guide? I’m sure once I back out if this response I can search this forum and find something.

As as for the bottom photo I assumed the difference in chainstay was for cassette clearance, I guess I just couldn’t tell if during the old owners repaint they filed it away a tad, or if the benotto craftsmanship wasn’t superb Thanks for the info on the ferrule, it bothered me the housing wasn’t flush...

shelbyfv

You could use this instead of the remaining braze-ons.

Moe Zhoost

Since the RD cable guide tube looks a bit flattened, perhaps the frame was dropped damaging the FD tube to the point that it fell apart.

I think the cut-out will present a challenge in mounting a plastic cable guide (and you may have to grind away the other metal ones so it will fit). If this were my bike, I think I would just ride it as is until I decided to repaint. It would be simple to braze on another tube guide at that point. Other than the cable being a bit too close to the downtube, there are no significant issues. You shouldn't worry about damage to the BB shell.

WizardOfBoz

I think that the FD derailleur cable originally was routed through the broken off guide, and then through the guide it currently goes through. So the first (now broken) guide gave you parallel cables on the down tube, and the additional FD guide allowed the cable to be nicely routed to the FD itself.

You could ride as is. Or grind off the stump of the old tube and braze a new one on. You could wait til you plan to repaint the whole thing, or you could just have the tube put on and paint the area damaged by brazing for now. Its on the bottom of the bottom bracket: you could just used primer if you wanted! Or grind all tubes off and figure out how to fix the plastic setup on, probably by fitting a piece of steel into that cutout

CliffordK

There is definitely a lot of cable rub on the bottom bracket. Probably not hurting anything, but definitely there.

I'm not sure I've seen two piece cable guides like that, but ideally the tube would be bent, maybe with a curve for the bottom bracket and a 30° sweep towards the rear guide.

If one does choose the do the repair, I'd fix both the front and rear derailleur sides (and perhaps remove and replace all the guides). Other updates such as bottle bosses? Rack Mounts?