Easy way to thread cable throught the frame?

[lejogger]

I'm still none the wiser.....

To sum up it seems like it's very much dependant on your specific frame.

I'm having to continue using the bike in question for commuting until tomorrow then I'll strip it down on Thursday night maybe so I don't have to use the car in the good weather. I'll then be able to tell whether the outer goes through the frame or if it's just the inner, or indeed if there is a guide in the frame itself.

If there is a guide then there's no issue.

If no guide and the outer continues through then I'll do as some have advised and leave the old outer in place, thread the new inner through the old outer then once through remove the outer and replace with the new.

If no guide and the outer is snipped at each end then I guess I'll try the thread method when removing.

I'll report back my findings but it does seem like it could be pot luck.

 

[Cubist]

Tie a piece of monofilament to the end of the old inner and pull it through. Tie the monfilament to the end of the new inner and pull it back through.

 

[lejogger]

Update: The cable doesn't go through the toptube. It is snipped at both ends. It does look as though there's a guide in the frame but it's a bit too dark and tight to see properly so I used the thread method... Still part way through the job so I don't have a new cable through yet, just a long line of thread through the frame!

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

Any idea where to get this tube? Would my LBS have some lying around the workshop?

My local LBS has tons of the stuff, I just ask for it when needed

 

[Foghat]

I have a Pearson Carbon Audax Pro on which the outer brake cable merrily slid into one end and straight out the other end of the top tube when I first built it up - therefore it must have had an internal guide.

Cue fitting a new set of cables a few years later, I take the entire thing out knowing that there is a nice guide to make fitting the new cable easy. Except there isn't - somehow the internal guide is no longer connected up properly, and the outer cable end just gets lost in the top tube and won't go anywhere near the correct exit hole.

Somewhat irritated, I decide to try poking a spoke into the exit hole in a seemingly vain attempt to lodge into and capture the lost flapping outer cable end and thus use the spoke to guide it towards the exit hole while pushing the cable from the other end (entirely blind as it's impossible to tell where the cable end is). After a lot of feeling around, eventually the spoke end makes it into the outer cable end, and lo and behold after a bit of pushing the outer cable emerges from the exit hole.

Next time for that bike I'll be using the replace outer/replace inner method.