Step 4 on all my truck/house/bike repair plans is "cry". It's just good to have it outlined in the plan ahead of time. If you don't need to by then, that's a huge win! Move on to step 5.
A thin plastic bag tied to the end of the floss, one that can be pushed in the smaller hole of the down tube, will help the vacuum suction grab it better. A trick often used fishing conduit in electrical.
A little piece of torn off sponge tied to the floss/string can also work, sometimes better than the parachute method, sometimes not as well. And usually you only put the first part of the string down the hole and let the vacuum (wind) pull the string into the tube.
When I installed my dropper post I had a nightmare routing the cable until I used the shop vacuum method. However the key is to use yarn. Medium sized yarn has the correct surface area and flexibility to make it through some pretty tough turns. It didn’t work with any other type of string. I tried floss, twine, several others, then when I was desperate got some yard from my wife’s sewing kit. Worked like a charm!
@@sydfixesbikes I also wonder if rotating the frame so that the seat tube is horizontal or slightly downward so that gravity isn't as much a factor. Regardless, this was another great video. I got a little smarter today!
Had to manually insert a housing for a dropper post last week. Tried using the park tools internal routing kit but it wasn’t working out. Ended up using the vacuum method with gift wrap ribbon. On the bottom bracket there was a small opening so we fed the ribbon through there and vacuumed it up the downtube first. Then we vacuumed the other end through the seatpost. Hopefully, I will never have to do that again. If I do, I’ll have to try using yarn.
Used the yarn and shop vac. Found I had to feed the yarn slowly or it balled up and snagged. Took a few attempts but it eventually worked. Helped to ballpark how much yarn I thought would need to be fed through so I knew when it had snagged.
AS you mentioned earlier, if manufacturers would simply have a channel for each cable not only would it save time, but also save everyone money in labor. Afterall, even back in the 90's when we were doing this, most bikes had channels. Great video!!
Manufacturers want to claim lower frame weights and customers want those lower weights. Most customers aren't running cables so it's only a problem for mechanics
I build my first hard tail MTB this summer. I didn’t have the park tool kit, which at the time I didn’t know about that product. Routing the cables was the hardest part of the whole project. I cried a bit but eventually got them all ran. Then a week later I saw the park tool kit. Haha if I ever build another bike up that kit is the first thing on my list!
I really like when Syd make those comments such as the one regarding tools and the human brain development. The tone she uses is as she didn't really care about but I guess she really like science, she might be even a bit nerdy, which is great.
I would say that if you notice that the wire doesn't move smoothly through the housing you can try to clean it and lube the wire but I've never managed to make it work well, so I usually just go for new housing. My bike has external routing with a lot of places where the wire is exposed. Last year I had to replace the shifter cable housing almost after every muddy ride. Then I drilled the frame and routed the housing from the shifter all the way to the derailleur. I have no shifting problems in mud since I made this mod.
Yeah, we change housing everytime we replace the cable as they tend to wear together. And we generally do it based on feel (if it starts getting hard to shift, it's time) although that can cause problems because the shifting degrades so slowly that you might not realize how hard it is... So, if you have a second bike or a friend's bike that has a similar shifter/derailleur combo, shift that every once in a while and if it feels way easier, it's time!
I use the shifter cable and housing chase method, especially on my carbon road bike. It uses full housing all the way through the frame with no internal guides. It is definitely a job of having patience.
When wrapping the tape around the housing be carefully to feather it, a little lube on the tape works wonders as well. The vacuum and string trick works brilliantly on kayaks and surfskis, I put a tissue on the end of the string.
fishing line and vacuum cleaner can work but suction has to be good. To ensure that, tape other holes in the frame so that air goes in and out only where you need it. Thin end on the vacuum cleaner helps as well. There is also another way you can try. If housing cable is out but inner is still in the frame just pass the new housing over it.
That second tip is great! In terms of the suction, we were getting good suction, especially the first way (vacuum on the seat tube) and it was definitely pulling the floss in, but wasn't ever coming out!
Top tip: a tandem gear cable should be able to thread through a new AND the old housing. You'll usually need to trim the excess off the old housing where it exits the frame before you start, but otherwise you can pull the old housing out and install the new in one go.
I successfully used a vacuum to install a dropper post (no previous cable to follow) but didn't have to get around the BB. I suggest checking for other holes arid can be sucked into and block those with your hand. Newly found series and I'm enjoying.
I wish, wish, wish I would have looked at this video before I tried installing my new dropper post housing and cable. I yanked out the old housing without a second thought like a total dumbass, now I’m in a tough spot trying to reroute the new cable. No luck so far, I’m totally defeated. I’m gonna try some of your methods and see if they work. Thanks for the great content.
Well this was helpful in the extreme. After my brother and I wrestled with routing his cables a few months ago I wish I'd known this then. There's always the next bike though!
Pushing the new cable in with the old cable is a genuinely awesome technique. Prior to getting a routing kit (which I absolutely swear by BTW), the amount of faffing about I spent trying to get cable through my Giant Defy was terrible. Tips for people using the vacuum cleaner technique... Make sure the string is going downhill, i.e. gravity assisted. This helps, a little bit.... PVC coated garden wire is pretty useful to push through. But, seriously, just buy a routing kit. They are absolutely magical and not particularly expensive Final pro tip when routing cables. Make sure you have a swear jar. The money you put in the jar when routing internal cables will probably pay for a house deposit......
Were you using waxed floss? The stickiness of the wax would be a hindrance. I've had great success using that method, but using a sewing thread. Just put the spool next to the smaller hole, feed the end of the thread in, and put the vacuum on the bigger hole. Keep feeding in from the spool and keep good suction at the other end (cup your hand around the end of the vacuum hose to make a good seal). The thread emerges, then you tie the thread around a new cable. Pull the cable through using the thread. Now, you can feed the new housing through by sliding it onto the cable.
Top Tip - When using the dental floss method it's much easier to fish the inner cable through then using the inner cable as a guide for the much stiffer outer cable 👍
20+year shop professional here... the other day I killed 3.5 hours trying to get the cables routed properly in a road bike. The wires ran naked through the downtube and should have been a simple install, but the first two times I ran them the rear derailleur wire got wrapped around the front so that the front shifting effected the rear trim🙄. Finally got that sorted, but then the rear was sluggish and hanging up somehow. Come to figure out that the brake hose had ended up spiral wrapped along the outside of the down tube such that no matter how I dropped the rear wire through it would rub and drag on the foam anti-rattle thing that the brake hose was run through. Fiddled around some more and finally got it all sorted, but what a freak’n time suck. And of course I cant charge my customer 200 in labor for replacing two cables. So glad its winter and I’ve got nothing else pressing.
Yes... Having fought with running internal housing a few times, the first time I used the Park tool was eye opening - "well... that was easy..." Yes. It's expensive. No. You won't use it very often. But when you do use it, it's a wonderful tool. That said... I wonder if the tool could be duplicated by taking some 18g electronics wire, soldering a plain steel nub onto one end, and using a strong magnet to pull it through the frame, then taping the housing to the wire to pull it through the frame.
Yeah, I think people have also made a similar tool out of old cables instead of the electrical wire. The steel nub is a great idea. Have to admit though that one of our favorite parts of the tool is the part that screws into the housing. Has helped us when the opening is too tight to pass the housing if it has anything taped to it!
@@sydfixesbikes Definitely. But it's hard to say if it's worth ~$66 for it. Electrical tape can work, but it needs to wrap around more of the housing than in the video. I use a spiral wrap that covers at least a couple of inches of the housing and pulling wire (or housing). Things I learned the hard way once when re-wiring a car and had to pull bundles of wiring through all sorts of odd pathways. I'm still not 100% sure what all of the other pulling wires are for. That one cable is probably adequate for 99% of tasks most people will encounter. Park could probably sell a much cheaper version of the kit with just that cable.
Nice look at all the potential fixes for the common miseries. I've done a decent amount of internal routing and used every trick in the book to pull it off when it went wrong (tying small nuts onto string and grabbing with those super strong whiteboard neodym magnets -- you can get them at Home Depot too, and just wrap tape on them to avoid scratches), wads of duck tape on zip ties, zip ties made into lassos, louder swears), but it's almost always a PITA. I built some internal cable routing into a custom carbon fiber bike I made my kid, including some channeling, then decided not to use it and put on external routing stops. I didn't want to have a fight on my hands whenever I re-cabled. Internal routing looks nice, but I'm getting too old and lazy to care. If you've got it, plan the swaps first! If you don't, run full jacketed cable the whole way, put some clear "racer" tape around the frame, zip tie there, and enjoy a ride rather than a cable fight.
Park's IR kit saved me. Got a '90s touring frame powder coated instead of repainting it, so everything had to be removed. Rear brake cable was internally routed. Straight shot through the top tube but couldn't get new cable or housing through manually. Vacuum method resulted in failure plus losing a piece of string inside the frame. Ordered Park's kit, waited a few days for it to arrive, and finished the job. Yeah, it isn't cheap and probably won't be used often, but restoring my sanity was worth it? I can always loan it out to friends in exchange for beer or sell it on ebay to recoup much of the cost. I've acquired a lot of tools on ebay for less than MSRP via those who sell them after using them once.
Also! If there is no housing in the bike, you can try to route the cable itself through the frame, which is more bendy and maneuverable. Then, you can slide the housing over that and it will follow the cable through the frame! These videos are awesome, keep 'em coming!!
Just went through this for the first time. Tried the vacuum for a bit with no luck. Ended up taping a little piece of metal wire to some kite string and fishing it through with a strong magnet. Took a while to get it right but did eventually work! Man, was that ever a frustrating process!
Fun hack: mount a roll of electrical tape on a desk-type tape scoth tape dispenser so you can easily (one-handedly) pull and cut an appropriate length piece of tape (or tapé, if in France).
I use the vacuum trick for all sorts of things including running pull rope / pull tape though conduit for pulling wires for my past day job (electrician). If there is nothing for it to hang on along the path, a small plastic tied to the beginning of the string works really well. In a bike frame however, I can see it potentially getting snagged on coped joint points depending on the hole that the builder made in the intersecting tub. For bike frame, a small balloon like a water balloon will work better mainly because of size. I suspect that the problem ya'll had with the vacuum trick was a rough edge (burs on drilled pass though / vent holes) of one of the welded joints catching the floss causing it to hang up. Something like a piece or really light gauge (24ga or lighter) jacketed wire would have worked better since it that will still have good flexibility but have the jacket which would help keep if from getting snagged on any rough edges left during the frame build by the builder.
This is a really thorough exploration of the options available to route internal housing, I think. I think you even covered the situation I have with my Specialized Fuse in that my cable housing exits the downtube, then wraps around the bottom bracket before either entering a hole in the seat tube (for the dropper) or going to the back for the derailleur. I invested in two different cable routing tools. Both use the magnetic concept to try and pull a leader through the frame. The first is by Jagwire (I'm not really liking it too much) and the second one I bought was the Park Tool. My problem? The hole on the downtube where my shifter cable housing goes in was too small for the Park Tool tips, and I couldn't figure out how to use the pull string that has NO tip (I have since learned how to use it). The nice thing is, the bike on which I was working has a nice door at the bottom of the downtube that is big enough to help me get to the housing just before the bottom bracket. So on the Fuse, I truly don't need a tool to get the housing in place. But one day, when I work on my Trance or my Defy, I will likely need it as both of those have cables that run through the bottom brackets similar to what you're showing here.
Personal experience, getting cables past the BB on a Defy can be a huge PITA. Even using a magnet, the 'head' of the routing kit can get lost, and you have to start again.
I was one of the dummies to pull the whole thing out, then realized the little thing at the end of the cable gets stuck in the entrance of the housing cable frame, and had to re rout it by using a shirt wired hanger, bent a small hook at the end of it and a small flashlige to peek through the seat post frame, and try to hook the end of the housing cable, and then pull up with the hanger and at the same time push cable from the other side. Twisting the cable from the other end helps the cable center at the bottom.
Just put a drop of CA glue on the cable, each end, insert into casing and let dry or spray with activator. Pull as needed. Once pulled, simply cut the section with CA glue off and proceed with mounting.
Yeahhhh, I wasted a lot of time with the vacuum method, dental floss, cotton thread, string. Fail, fail, fail. Seemed to get bunched up and stuck in the frame if it was thin material and it just would not come through if too thick a material. Pretty frustrating task. Great video, I gave up and bought the tool.
Vacuum cleaner works very well if you use ptfe plumbers tape or decorative nylon ribbon. Plug or seal all the routing wholes and bottle cage wholes with tape except the one your using . Feed ribbon from the front of the frame withe vacuum on the seat tubes ensuring that there is a good seal for maximum suction Definitely quicker than chasing a magnet .
Great video. I wish I saw this yesterday. I lost my housing in the bike thing to "pull" instead of "pushing" it through. That lead to hours of attempting to fish it through. What a nightmare.
While yall were trying the vacuum method, I actually had the thought of using floss or fishing line, washer or something magnetic and a magnet to do essentially the same thing as the parktools tool
Nowoday there are cheap tools kit that are the exact principal as this parktool kit (but it feels like park tool were the first to make a special tool kit). You can have these tool for like 10-20€ on amazon and less than 10€ on aliexpress. It migh be a good buy to make life easier (and maybe an essential as a bike shop).
i couldn't tell whether the cable housing mounted inside that hole in the frame was removable or not - thanks for showing me that it is! what a cinch after...
Pro Tip for routing internal cables: 1) Tie a long piece of thread at the end of the new cable. 2) Put the new cable into one end of the internal cable route 3) Take a small small (hair size) metal cable, like a piece from a used brake cable. 4) Make a hook on one end of the small small cable. 5) Put the small small cable hook end into the other end of the internal cable route 6) Now twist the small small metal cable with your fingers 7) As you twist, the hook end will make circular motion and grab on to the thread. 8) Remember, the thread is attached to the new cable that you want to pass through. 9) Pull on the thread you will pull on the cable. works every time, you don't need stinking vacuum or magnet.
My cables are fairly easy to route, however, I have tried installing some housing wrap to calm some rattling down but that stuff doesn't move very freely inside the frame when trying to feed it in so it gets stuck and bunches up. Should tear the bike apart since there is a ton of snow and try to get it figured out before spring hits.
Thanks that was great. I met someone who used a small dog to rewire his old stone farmhouse. He sent the dog into the wall cavity with string tied to it and called it out through a hole at the other end of the wall. Maybe bike techs could use the same technique with a smaller animal? A mouse maybe or a beatle?
If we removed the housing before only. You can insert the wire inside the housing and you can use a magnet to work your way around. Like how you do with the internal housing kit...😎😎
You need a little piece of grocery bag like a parachute at the end of the dental floss,tape off any holes and cup your hand around the end of the hose.
Dental floss works, maybe your vacuum doesn't suck enough. You just hold the vac on the seat tube and let the floss feed in, no cable needed to start with; unless your frame leaks vacuum elsewhere.
this is great except I have a routing tube and can't find it from the seatpost end(ends up outside of routing tube in frame) and it just gets stuck from front stem about 2-3 inches from seatpost...ugh so frustrating. I feel like such a moron for not affixing electrical tape to the existing torn up housing cable!!! It's a specialized 2022 enduro comp btw...so any tricks on that would be greatly appreciated
Fishing line and magnets finally worked for me on a 900 gram chinesium fiber hard tail. But the cables just rattle around inside making so much noise that I hate to ride it. So better, if you have that kind of routing, post the frame on craigslist and spare yourself the disappointment.
I pulled my dropper cable out with the internal one and it was a pain in the ass to get back in I took it to a bike shop they couldn’t to it. I just used a tiny nut and tied it to a fishing line and dropped in the seattube and the I wiggle the frame so the nut slides up the downturn and I was able to catch it with a magnet from the outside of the downtube. And then I could get it done after many hours and days of frustration
We did drill a hole in a frame a number of years ago so we could install an internally routed dropper post. It was fine, but it was only one hole. Obviously the manufacturer is going to say don't and it'll void every kind of warranty, but, depending on the location, it can be done. Our official recommendation though is not to.
I installed a dropper post on my daughters Fuel EX8 what a nightmare I finally got the vacuum with some 1/4” ribbon past the bottom bracket the park tool seams like a great tool.
@@sydfixesbikes I've also done it by hot-gluing a small feather (think down feather that inevitably leaks from your coat) to the end of the floss. That worked for me.
Question: I tried seeing what is inside the frame through the internal cable port, because there was rattle noises, but I ended up accidentally ripping off the port since it was rubber. What should I do? Do I just go to a mechanic for him to take out the cables, put some internal housing damper on and put a new port or do I try something myself?
@@sydfixesbikes Also a good point! Love your channel BTW - got my daughter watching, she's 11. Really (this is not sarcasm) helps to see a woman doing bike stuff and making it fun and un-daunting. Keep going!
I have an old aluminum 26" full suspension bike with external cable routing, but I wanted to install a dropper. So I drilled a hole in the frame at the top, a hole before the bottom bracket and another hole in the seat post tube. I pushed fishing line through each hole and then pulled on it to get the cable out of the frame. It took a couple of hours, but it worked. I've put a few hundred miles on it, no signs of metal fatigue around the holes I drilled. If it does fail, that just gives me an excuse to buy a newer bike.
I take offense to your comment that bikes aren't magnetic. Steel seems to be coming back. Lot's of custom frame builders like it because it is easy to work with.
If you ride with anything cable actuated, I reckon having the routing external is the way too go; it just makes everything dead easy to do. With electronic shifting + hydraulic braking on the other hand, better go full-on internal, as it really is set and forget.
We prefer internal for 3 reasons: 1. It looks good 2. It generally increases the life of the cable/housing because most internal cable runs are continuous from lever to derailleur/post so there's less chance of getting dirt in the housing 3. It protects the lines in case of a crash (especially true for the rear hydraulic disc brake) Many new bikes nowadays have full guides inside the frame, so you just push the housing in one side and it pops out the other side which makes it really easy!
How does running internal brake hoses vary, as if the hose is connected to the caliper by a banjo, you can only feed the new hose the opposite way, when disconnected at the brake lever the hose must go from lever to caliper, then new hose has to go caliper to lever, no way you can use the old hose to guide the new one. Any hacks for this?
If your replacing it, you can attach something to the one you're replacing and pull it through as you remove the old one, then use that to help guide the new one.
Yeah, to elaborate on what Syd said, just cut the banjo off at the caliper end of the old hose. Now you can attach the lever end of the new hose to the caliper end of the old hose, and use the old hose to pull the new hose through. Also, the Rockshox Reverb Stealth barb connector is a nice cheap little tool that will help. It threads into the ends of two hydraulic hoses (or cable housings!) to hold them securely together while you guide them through the frame.
This sucks. I'm trying to fish out stuck a cable housing that's stuck on the bottom of the dropper tube and its SUCKS. The pain is immeasurable, kill me.
наша девченка сразу видно рукастая хорошие родители воспитали и научили такой в жизни ничего не страшно и деток вырастит и починит любую поломку МОЛОДЧИНА,