Bicycle Mechanics - I need help on a brake cable!!

Hoow do you reinstall a brake cable in when the cable is routed INSIDE the top tube?

Is it a peck and hope, till you accedentally stab it? or is there some pro secret?

Just turn your bike on its side and peck at it, or use a wire hanger or some copper electrical wire..........you still would have to peck at it... not a difficult task....

Whenever I remove one I make sure to tape a piece of wire onto the cable housing about to be removed. This serves as a pull wire for re-installing the housing.

Take a long piece of strong string and poke one end into the hole in the top tube.
Now tilt the bike on end and try to get as much string crammed into the top tube as possible.
Tie off the other end to the seat post so you don't accidently pull it through.
Get a thin, fairly stiff piece of wire and bend a very small hook on one end.
Push the hook end into the other top tube hole and try to hook the string by turning and "fishing" for the string.
Eventually you will hook the string and can pull it out the other end (if you've been living right).
Now you have a nice pull string to pull the housing in with.

It helps to get as much string as possible in there to make a good target.

Good luck oldRoadie.

If it's the style where the cable housing goes through the top tube along with the cable itself, generally you remove the cable from the housing, run your new cable down the old housing, then pull the old housing out. Now you can run your new housing up your new cable from the rear end.

The kind where the cable housing is interrupted call for Jedi skills sometimes. Some of them have liner to guide the cable, or a metal guide tube, but if they don't, just curve the end of your cable, get a flashlight, and work at it patiently. :)

Remove the seat post and you should be able to stick your finger in the enlarged vent hole for the top tube. On just about every bike I have worked on that uses a guidless internal routing the hole is big enough to get your finger in there far enough to guide the cable and/or housing. Be careful if your hands are on the big side, you can chinese hand cuff your self to the frame.

Rev; the frames is lugged steel...no hole in the seattube to the toptube.

But, I did like your suggestion best!

Used the famous wire coathanger and poked like a fourteen year old on his first date:rolleyes: and finally stabbed it.

Thanks everyone for the advise.

Terry