Thanks everyone. I printed some of the responses and saved them in my "mechanic's notebook".

One question - if you're assessing the cable and housing, how do you judge that it should be replaced? If the cable shows any kind of rust, should it be immediately chucked?

And are the cable caps crimped at all or do they just stay put with friction? I do have the Park cable cutter/crimper tool and it looks like there is one crimp position that's bigger than the other (which is meant for cable ends).