Any Tips for threading housing through frame?

[OperaLover]

My daugher was complaining that her rear brake was getting stiff. It's a Cannondale 24 mountain bike. I thought it would be a good time to teach her a basic repair sikill. Well, it looks like there is no internal tube for the housing to pass through the TT; just an opening on either end. Any hints on theading it through?

Thank you!

[David Kirk]

Take a piece of string and feed it in one end of the frame and then put a vacuum cleaner nozzle at the other end and it will typically suck the one end of the string out.

Now with string all the way through fasten (I like tape)the string to the brake housing and pull it through.

dave

[Louis]

String and a Shop-Vac? (never had to do that myself, so I have no idea if it works)

Edit: Looks like Dave beat me to it.

Good Luck

[peanutgallery]

Shop vac? genius. That's a new one and I like it

Its one of those things that'll make you earn your keep as a wrench. Not that hard but experience and patience is the key. I used to love it when a home mechanic would bring one in and I'd thread a cable thru in seconds

I clip the ends of the cable, pull the housing out and slide the new housing over the old cable that was never pulled out of the frame and viola

Also had luck just feeding the housing (or just a plain cable) into the frame and catching it with a dental pick on the other end. Keep a little force on both ends.

When in doubt, magnets

[EricEstlund]

Along the same lines as the 2:1:2 cable/housing:cable:housing/cable method above- if you can put a little bend in a piece of cable you might have an easier time fishing that through. Twisting the end can rotate where the bend is in the frame to pop out the hole. Once its through, you can reverse new housing over it.

[nooneline]

a good way is to pull the housing out of the frame, but leave the old cable in.

then, push the new housing through, using the old cable as a guide.

then pull out the old cable and put a new one in.

[pitonpat]

That vacuum trick is the same as we do on construction sites for buried conduit:

Introduce heavy duty mason's twine into one end, shop vac at the other...voila! you have a messenger line to pull the wires!

[SoCalSteve]

This is an amazing tool:

Exactly what you are looking for

Good luck!

Steve

[msl819]

Originally Posted by OperaLover

My daugher was complaining that her rear brake was getting stiff. It's a Cannondale 24 mountain bike. I thought it would be a good time to teach her a basic repair sikill. Well, it looks like there is no internal tube for the housing to pass through the TT; just an opening on either end. Any hints on theading it through?

Thank you!

My father in law is a dentist and I get him to pass along his dental tools (Scrapers) when they get retired. The hooks and such are great for this kind of issue and tons more. Not sure if you know a dentist but they break the ends on those tools often and they are just consumables to them.

[OperaLover]

Unfortunately, I pulled everything out. I will try the shop vac trick and I do have some dental like picks that I got from harbor freight. I only have one bike with internal routing (my Colnago) and it has an internal sleeve to guide the RR brake housing through. Funny because orignally I was just going to replace the cable and leave the old housing, but thought to myself, "that's lazy! You wouldn't half ass this if it were you own bike would you?" Plus my daughter was so into learning how to do it.

She is 10 with two brothers (13 and 8), but is the only one so far who shows a real interest in wrenching. She also keeps hinting for a "real bike" (read "road bike") so she can go really fast! Plays me like a violin that's for sure!

[pinkshogun]

i second the string and vacuum trick....works well

[Steve in SLO]

Originally Posted by pitonpat

That vacuum trick is the same as we do on construction sites for buried conduit:

Introduce heavy duty mason's twine into one end, shop vac at the other...voila! you have a messenger line to pull the wires!

And if you only have compressed air, you can use a ping-pong ball with a string attached to it and blow the ping-pong ball through.
Obviously not a tip for the bike, unless you have seriously OS tubing.

[guyintense]

Originally Posted by SoCalSteve

This is an amazing tool:

Exactly what you are looking for

Good luck!

Steve

They were demonstrating that at Interbike, cool tool but doesn't work too well on steel.
I drilled a hole in one end of a coat hanger and pointed the other. Just poke the hanger through the frame insert the cable in the hole and push/pull the contraption through.

[F150]

Don't know about the string and Shop Vac trick, but a Shop Vac will suck a shop rag out of the intake manifold of a 4.9L Ford truck engine, in the event you were to leave said shop rag in the intake after reattaching the rebuilt carburetor.

Or so I heard...

[Gummee]

I didn't have access to string last time I had to fish stuff thru a tube so I used dental floss. Lighter so it gets sucked thru better

HTH

M