Just a bit of kindly advice. i decided to swap the gear cables on my Klein Attitude yesterday, internally routed through the top tube. Like a muppet i just took the old ones out without thinking it through, hence spent 2 hours fishing about trying to thread the first (rear mech) cable into the frame near the head tube, along inside the top tube and blindly through the 2mm dia exit hole near the seat tube. eventually i succeeded by using a magnet, witchcraft and a whole load of luck to draw the cable nearer the hole.
next was the front mech cable. after 3 hours with the magnet i got the hunch that this wasn't going to work (patient, me...) then had the bright idea of feeding a decent length of cotton thread into the 'entry hole', attaching the vacuum cleaner to the exit hole with an airtight seal made of sellotape (resourceful too) and sucking the other end of the cotton out of the exit hole to make a 'floss' effect. this worked first time, i was 'well chuffed' as one might say. then all i had to do was tie the top end of the cotton to the end of the cable and drag it through, no problems at all. i could have saved myself 5 hours of hell trying to thread an elephant through the eye of a needle. it did take some explaining to the missus what i'd been doing with the vacuum cleaner afterwards though.
so if you're a muppet like me and don't think ahead, remember this snippet. obviously the more intellectual amongst us would just tie the piece of cotton round the old cable before you remove it, but hey where's the fun in that. :twisted:
next was the front mech cable. after 3 hours with the magnet i got the hunch that this wasn't going to work (patient, me...) then had the bright idea of feeding a decent length of cotton thread into the 'entry hole', attaching the vacuum cleaner to the exit hole with an airtight seal made of sellotape (resourceful too) and sucking the other end of the cotton out of the exit hole to make a 'floss' effect. this worked first time, i was 'well chuffed' as one might say. then all i had to do was tie the top end of the cotton to the end of the cable and drag it through, no problems at all. i could have saved myself 5 hours of hell trying to thread an elephant through the eye of a needle. it did take some explaining to the missus what i'd been doing with the vacuum cleaner afterwards though.
so if you're a muppet like me and don't think ahead, remember this snippet. obviously the more intellectual amongst us would just tie the piece of cotton round the old cable before you remove it, but hey where's the fun in that. :twisted: