Help with braze-on shifter
 

Hi. I have a braze-on down tube shifter with the cable frozen in it. Any ideas how to get the cable out?

I just grab the cable (with needle nose pliers) about 1mm from exit hole and push. The closer you can grab the cable to the hole, the less it flexs. That has always worked for me.

I've had similar problems. Some cables never come out. But don't stop trying.

What T-Mar said. I find that pliers work well. You can grab quite close to the hole.

A little penetrant may help. If not a 1/16 drill bit to drill the lead out.

+1.

Just about any round bit that's frozen into place can be coaxed out by drilling. Start small, work your way up.

yeah....I worked with it a little. Its tough to hold it in the vise without damaging it. I used two pieces of pine, one on each side. The drill bit jumps around. Really need a drill press, not a Dremil.

If you have a bench vice, put the tail in the vice and spin in the direction that would tighten the cable braid. The object is to force it to un-bind the lead head - if it'll spin, it'll also push out.

I had to deal with this over the weekend with a Simplex shifter someone sent and they used a dremel to cut the cable flush because the end was stuck. In that case, the cable was loose enough I could slide one of my jeweler screwdriver tips into it and push out from inside. In that case, I slid the end of the driver into the hole, set the driver on my bench and used a wood mallet to gently tap the lever onto the driver. Within 3-4 taps it pushed out.

nothing is working

spray it with pb breaker then try again. PB breaker is like wd40 times 50 stronger. I have restored some real hard cases and pb breaker is the stuff

Last thing I would recommend is to get a drill bit wide enough to drill a 1mm-2mm hole dead center on the end. Then thread a screw into that hole and use it for leverage.