NathBikes

Morning All,

Just been trying to replace the gear cable in a Cube Attain bike. I normally use some small silicone piping to thread over the cables and out the other end which works well.

However, this particular frame has tiny holes, only just big enough for the cable and maybe 0.5mm wiggle room max, so I can't use my normal method, or use thread or anything else.

Does anyone have any experience or ideas on how I can make this work? I've already pulled the existing cable through, as I thought it might be easy to thread the cable back through if there were guides but there isn't anything to I'm a bit stuck!

Many thanks in advance!

deacon mark

One way is to use a strong magnet but I don't think that will work either if the hole is just big enough for the cable. One thing is to get a guitar string ( i repair guitars for a living) and use it as the guide. Guitar strings are stiffer than cables and they are in various gages. I would solid plain string gauged to ,22 and you can probably thread that in easier. Then attached the cable to that carefully and pull it through. You could try using ca glue to glue the string to the cable so it won't pull off easy. You could also try heat shrink tubing on the end and pull through. This could work the next time you change them out by simply putting the new cable on the old with heat shrink tubing and threading it. Finally if it were me I would find some small tubing that would fit through the frame so that the cable could be installed easier. May need to go to medical supply house or box store with options to try in the hardware dept or tubing.

sovende

Why are you using a cable that’s so much thicker than the original one? Are you using the right cable? (Sorry, had to ask ).

NathBikes

Thanks for that - I managed to do it last night, I had some slightly higher gauge cableing at home that I could just poke through (yes it was very faffy) and then pull it around. Thanks for your help.

NathBikes

The cable is the same...just usually the entrance and exit holes for the cable are big enough to get a magnet or the silicone tubing or something through, but they aren't in this case.

dedhed

A stainless steel cable will not be magnetic.

KerryIrons

One method is to use dental floss and a vacuum cleaner. Put the suction hose over the exit hole and thread the dental floss in. The vacuum will pull it out the exit hole and then you can tie the floss to the cable and pull it through.