Apparently a shop vac and a bit of thread is all that’s been missing from my repertoire of shop tricks. Have you tried this in the past or have another preferred method to install internally routed cables? Let us know in the comments!
Haha! That’s the funniest thing i have ever seen on bike rumor 🙂
There is only one way to do it without being a pain.. Use a strong, not to small but not to big magnet. push the cable a little in the frame. find it with the magnet. you will hear and feel the cable in the frame. lead it with the magnet all the way down the down tube to the hole until it lies across the opening. you can move around with the magnet a bit to get the cable in the perfect position. now use a bent spoke to pull the cable out of the frame. be careful that you don’t loose the magnet in the hole. always keep it on the frame not on the hole and don’t let go of the magnet as it might ‘jump’ in the hole and attaches to the cable quite strongly. Works on the first attempt and not on steel frames.
cheers
Thank yo for the great trick w/ the suction for sure.
Some rigs are more of a bear than others for sure and the J bend spokes just do not do the trick (like on those Klein frames and others that the cable stop is non-removable).
Running the housing internally? A thin steel welding rod that can fit in a cable housing can also work in many situations.
Have some old Shimano Positron wire? That works extremely well. Thin but strong enough for directional control.
Some shop mechanics find success using strong magnets but that (for me) was a guessing game.
Good post and once again thank you. A good mechanic is always open to learing new tricks.
Cool. But… Not needed. Put a liner over the old cable before removing it, slide new cable in, done…
Unless you’re building a new bike for the first time (and now, many have liners) – this is so much extra steps… But still. Amusing. Strong magnets and a dental pick usually get the job done.
If you’ve never needed this trick then you’ve never worked in an actual shop for any appreciable amount of time. For Kleins and Kestrels in particular this trick has saved many a mechanic endless frustration including myself. Magnets don’t work when the cable gets caught on a latex bladder. I would not however have published this trick, I’m much more inclined to charge exorbitant amounts of money to fix their “home shop” mistakes therefore justifying the undeserved amount of pay I receive.
Hmm, maybe I could’ve tried this trick. For doing a Reverb stealth that exited the top of the down tube, I had a big hole to work with, and the only challenge was making the bend above the BB shell, up the seat tube. I tied a weight to the end of a piece of floss, and turned my bike upside down and used gravity and the tension to help make it around the bend. More reliable than trying to use a magnet through the tubes, especially large diameter mtn bike tubes.
The thread and vacuum technique is a good trick. The only problem I see with it is getting the thread to hold onto the cable. I typically opt for the more conventional method pointed out by goridebikes and other commenters. I made a video to show the method I use. Here is a link to it if anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQU5BNpnohU
I just spent 2 hours trying to feed my rear derailleur cable through the chainstay that has a tiny hole at both ends with a nearly 90 degree angle. I was about to take a drill to my frame and found this video. Thank you!! Using this method took me about 5 minutes to install the new cable. I used the thread to feed a tiny, lightweight plastic housing over the thread (used the vacuum to suck the thread through this housing too) then used that housing to feed the cable through. I don’t think the thread alone would have pulled the cable around the bend. Thank you so much!!
Easy way to replace any internal cabling. Go to your electronics store. Buy some heat shrink plastic tubing with really small diameter, just enough to feed in cable. Place a few inches/cms plastic over old cable end. Apply heat, small flame hair dryer etc to shrink plastic onto cable. Pull carefully through frame. Cut off end. Apply to new cable at other end and repeat process to pull through. Easy, quick and cheap. You can recycle the heat shrink for a few more sessions.
I love this—and can’t wait to give it a try with my new frame with internal routing!
Curiously, I learned about the vacuum trick a couple of months ago when we had some underground conduit run on my property. I asked the electricians how they fish the wire through, and they showed me how they suck the string through first, then attache the end to the wire and pull. Amazing!
Thank you so much, saved my life, Was replacing housing and cable on mtb dropper. Was pulling the new housing through with the old housing and disaster when they came apart. Used wool instead of thread and it took a few goes but it eventually worked. Put the hoover into the seat tube and taped up any exit point that i could. Stood the bike up to let gravity help
Thanks so much.
