Cable housings and caps?
 

Ok so I bought an old beater with some crap stem shifters on it (Falcon?), they are way too hard to shift. SO I'm thinking a cable and housing replacement will be crazy cheap <$20 and probably very effective.

The only thing that confuses me is the housing is split into 3 pieces. 1 - shifter to downtube, 2. downtube to chain stay, 3. chain stay to derailleur. Each of these pieces has an aluminum cap on it to avoid folding into the holders that each piece sits in.

I can buy long pieces of housing, but I need 3 and I have to cap the ends. How does this all work? I'd make this fix in a heartbeat if I wasn't confused about this... help??? :twitchy:

The housing generally comes in long lengths off a roll. You buy what you need plus a little then cut it to length and add the caps. Use the old housings as guages to cut the new ones to length unless you're sure that some are longer than they need to be.

Cutting them is a little tricky but if you take apart your old setup and take the housings into a bike shop they should cut and cap the new housings for you for only a small fee over the cost of the housings and cables. Often there's a $5 minimum fee for labor and this sort of cut and cap deal should fit into that easily. Especially if you buy the stuff you need from them.

While you're at it you may want to clean all the rest of the shifters and levers as well. They may well be just grunged up really badly. This isn't to say you should not get the new cables and housing. But the new stuff should be part of the overall cleaning. It's all part of the system. And any system is only as good as the weakest link.

The caps are called ferrules. You cut the housing to length for each section and slide on a ferrule. The ferrule does not need to be crimped.

reuse the caps

Wait! Is this an internal gear rear hub? If so, report back, and the proceedure is completely different. Do not cut off the ends of such a cable.

If it is a normal derailleur, then cut away.

jim

If you don't want to sink a whole lot of money into it. Just go to Wallymart and pick up one of their cable kits(about $5.00). It has brake and derailleur cable, housings and a pack of ferrules and brake cable ends. The cable is not coated or top of the line but works just fine on a beater.

Yeah i've got a shop 5 blocks away, not my race shop, but a shop that could easily cut and cap some housing for me.

I cleaned the shifters, i figure whether or not I need new shifters I'm going to need new cables and housings anyways.

thanks ad6mj for the correct term. wondered about that.

Just as an update, I got some Giant shift cables and housings. My bike shifts perfectly now FD and RD. I just got some new brake lines too, putting them on next.