Smitty2k1

Long story short my stable is all disc brake bikes from 2010 or newer, but a friend's dad offered me a pre-Trek Greg LeMond. It was cool but at least two sizes too big. I swapped the frame for this 1984 Casati Perfection and am in the process of building it back up with the components from the Greg LeMond. It feels like sacrilege putting Shimano components on this Italian steel, but hey, that's a project for another day.

Anyways, this Casati has some cool internal cable routing. The rear brake cable passes through the top tube and there is some sort of liner in there from the previous owner (probably a good thing) but the entrance/exit to the frame is too small for standard brake cable housing or a standard step-down ferrule. Did this era of bikes use a different size housing or a different size step-down ferrule?

Likewise the rear derailleur routes through the downtube, through the chainstay, and out the back of the chainstay right by the dropout. There was a piece of housing with this different size step-down ferrule attached to it, but it doesn't quite fit in either. There is no liner anywhere in this stretch of frame, but I was able to get a new cable through without too much trouble.

The front derailleur routes through the down tube and up and out the seat tube but appears to have no provisions for housing, as is typical. Likewise there is no liner anywhere in this system currently.

Questions:
1) What step-down ferrules do I need for the brake cable and rear derailleur?
2) Should I use a liner for the derailleurs or just leave the bare cables in there?

3alarmer 

...not entirely sure what you mean by "standard" step down ferrule. I recabled this one several years ago, so long ago that I don't recall what I used.
If you look around on the internet, I think you'll find that step down ferrule ends come in different sizes. If you want to use what you have, I guess you could file them down to fit.

That exit hole for the cable to the front derailleur looks dicey to me. I think you need to figure out some other way to run it.
AFAIK, everyone was using 5mm housing back them. I'm guessing you need to Google search some Casati bike pictures, to figure out that front derailleur setup.

There are other solutions than a direct cable to a bottom pull derailleur, with no housing. Just a liner, in and of itself, is not going to relieve the sharp bend of the cable at the exit point.

3alarmer 

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...I put up a bunch of pictures in this thread, as did other people, I honestly do not recall how I solved the front derailleur cable roiuting, but it looks like I went straight up from the exit hole as well. Is the exit hole modified in some way by the frame builder with a small cable bridge or something , at the top of the hole ?

velomateo

Brake cable routing may not require a ferrule, you may be able to just insert the cable into the holes.

I had a Somec years ago that had similar internal shift cable routing. The FD routing didn’t need any type of housing. There was a built in guide in the bottom bracket, and the cable exited a small hole similar to yours. It worked fine - no issues.

Smitty2k1

I can't quite get 4mm "standard" shift housing into the brake cable guides so I definitely need some sort of ferrule since brake housing is 5mm.

The front derailleur seems to shift OK. There was a little guide inside the BB for it. I don't have experience with vintage stuff (like down tube shifters...) so I'm not sure how smooth it should be. It does seem like I'd at least want a piece of liner there.

3alarmer 

...I have a pretty extensive collection of various leftover cable housing ferrules. I just measured a couple of the small ends on some of them, and they all come out in the neighborhood of 3.5 -3.8 mm. I think maybe you might do well to do some browsing around to see what's available. But if I were stuck and couldn't find anything, I'd probably slightly enlarge the entry holes in the frame fittings, to fit a standard 5mm to 4mm stepdown ferrule and call it good. But you need to do it carefully. Measure twice, cut once sort of thinking.

3alarmer 

Jtek Stepped Chrome Ferrules 3.7 mm Insert for 5 mm Outer Cable - Pack Of 4

SJX426 

Thei Pinarello has a similar brake cable braze on. It has an internal step, so I just striped the external housing and left the metal sheath to fill the step in the braze-on.
P1020156 on Flickr

79pmooney

Question - can you trim the plastic off the housing and fit it? I've done this many times to use newer housings on older equipment. A neat rim exactly at the ferrule end looks OK. (My pre-internet brain. What do I have on hand and how do I make it work?)

Edit: I see sjx426 beat me to it.

Smitty2k1

Dang these look great and waaaaay cheaper than eBay. Literally just got an SJS package delivered to me here in the US earlier this week. Wish I would have added these on!