Originally Posted by
flyfisherbob
Well, the gunk cleaned off really well, and the frame has only a couple of paint chips, so it should polish up nicely. The new challenge for me will be replacing the internally routed rear brake cable and housing. I'm so new at this that every bike has a fresh challenge. The bike will be sold, being too small for me. I'm building too much "inventory", so the spring better be kind when it comes. When this one is finished, I'll have three bikes to turn.
The internal rear brake cable housing is easy to deal with on a Trek.
Remove the seatpost.
Feed new housing in from the front. Stick your finger in the seatpost hole and guide the housing to the exit hole while shining a flashlight into the exit hole so you can line the housing up with the hole. Push the housing out the exit hole in the frame from the front.
If you can't get the housing to line up with the exit hole, use a stiff piece of wire, or a small diameter philips screwdriver stuck into the exit hole to line the housing up to exit.
Doesn't even take two minutes.