seaneee

Is this possible or just sheer madness. Any advice/tips would be appreciated.

DieselDan

Stop the madness.

HillRider

Trek did this on some of their frames to allow internal routing of the rear brake cable and my '92 1420 had this "feature". What a PITA! Changing the rear brake housing was an exercise in frustration.

seaneee

Yeah, I'm already guessing that will pretty much suck, but is it possible? I mean will it screw anything up?

headlessspider

yes it is but leave it to the framemaker. you'd probably shell out some for a new paint job.

operator

Put the drill down and smash it into pieces.

seaneee

Maybe I'll just keep going and do the whole drillium thing on my frame. Super light, good air flow. Nice.

top506

Miyata made it easy; they cut an oval slot in each end of the top tube and made a plastic bushing that had angled guides to push the cable housing out hole hole in the top.
Top

HillRider

One other thing I forgot to mention. Some of the Treks with the internal cable routing rattled like crazy on rough roads when the housing bounced around inside the top tube. Mine wasn't bad but a friend's almost drove him nuts. Packing plastic foam into the top tube quieted it down but made the job of changing the housing even worse.

n4zou

The frame tubing should be strengthened around the hole. Frame builders will braze on a small bit of metal around the hole. You can't do that so don’t drill your frame!

Replacing the cable casing is no big deal. Run a cable through the old casing and into the new casing. Pull the old casing out while pushing the new casing in. The cable running through both will allow the new casing to be aligned with the exit hole. If you cant get a cable through the old casing due to rust and must pull it out without pushing new casing behind it, just plug the frame so all holes are closed except the two holes where the casing will enter and exit. Take some string and an air nozzle connected to an air compressor. Start the end of the string in the cable hole and then start blowing compressed air into the hole. Compressed air exiting the other hole will force the string out that hole. Now you can tie the string to the new cable and then push the casing in using the cable as a guide.

Retro Grouch 

It might work if you are starting with a Roadmaster or a Next or some similar low carbon steel department store bike. If you're starting with a quality frame the tubing walls are so thin that you probably won't be able to drill a smooth, round hole. If your hole isn't nice and round, it'll create stress risers - that's a bad thing.

Sheldon Brown

SHEER MADNESS! DON'T DO IT!! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!!!

Sheldon "Do I Make Myself Clear?" Brown

HillRider

Yep, I used both of those techniques on the Trek frames I've worked on. They do work but it's still a lot of aggrivation to do a job so simple with conventional external cable routing. What's the advantage?

seaneee

I'm not quite sure I understand, could you clarify?

mlts22 

I wouldn't do it -- I would be too worried that I would have created a place where stress fractures can split the frame, or in my case, I'd end up just bozoing the job leaving a frame that is an unridable piece of modern art.

n4zou

It was an "Aero" fad at the time. Anywhere you could hide the cable in the frame providing a "sleek" look with hidden cable was all the rage. Supposedly putting the cables in the frame got them out of the wind and there incrementally increased drag was eliminated. I thought it was dumb and made casing replacement time consuming. After saying that I do have a bike with top tube internal routed rear brake cable! It does make for a nice look.

JustBrowsing

My old freestyle bike forever ago had some slots/welts for running the brake cables through the frame. Biggest PITA in the world...Sure, it was clean, but it made a 3 minute job a 30 minute job when it came time to replacing the housing...

dirtbag214

drilling holes in the frame,hmmm, you realize those holes will now become stress points,don't you?

well biked

Just curious, but why do you keep pulling threads out of the archives from around 4-20-2007?

Dr.Deltron

Aah, the 4-20-07 era, now THAT was a true C&V era alright! Back in that day!

But for seanee, I'd say drill the frame! Just turn the drill sideways so the hole is oval, rather than round.
Running housing through the holes takes maybe 5 minutes more than it does with external routing.
If you drill, PM me and I'll describe my "secret" technique.
And painting isn't needed unless you want to add braze-on reinforcements around the holes.
(and haven't slipped with the drill)

well biked

It just seems odd to me that of dirtbag214's 20 BF posts so far, maybe half of them are in threads that died out in the range of 4/20-4/25/07. To each their own. But it seems to me if you really want to help someone, it's probably a good idea to concentrate on more current threads, where the OP might still be looking for answers-