Oiling ancient brake cables?
 

My 1952 Rudge is now able to be ridden, and with a little brake work and maybe some mudguards, it will be ready to go farther than the end of my driveway (lol!). The brakes and cables are from 1952, and I think I need to get some lube in-between the inner and outer cables to smooth them up. Any thoughts? What lube? any oil injector gadgets? Any gotchas or caveats? These old ones could have been teh best of the big British factory in 1952, or they could have been replaced about 36 years ago (50% of lifetime to date). They are NOT lined with teflon or anything modern and useful!

Levers are some nice Balilla drop-bar levers with screw adjusters in very good shape, the calipers are the original GB Hiduminium sport, and the brake shoes are original, or at least old, in the back and new ones of similar design in the back. IGH is an FM. Nice since I relubed it care fully with SAE 30 (Sturmey's recommendation!!), and adjusted the bearing play, and aligned the rear dropouts and triangles. to get the alignment, dish, and chainlines "all lined up" (lol!). I hope nobody has concerns about Italian levers on a British bike, but I didn't see any GB levers in period, with adjusters. I guess Italy may have been in the lead back then!

Maybe I'll circumnavigate Ann Arbor or at least my city block? I'll probably take it to Auburn with me as a discussion starter. The wheels turn well, most of the FM IGH works, the chainset and headset are smooth and free, and while it's hard to get the seatpost binder tight enough, the bike holds me up nicely. Also, the laced on Super Champion aluminum rims feel and look great!

I hope to do a rail-trail or two, or maybe Huron River Drive or the B2B out to Dexter?

Would try graphite

Any particular reason not to replace with new cables? Nostalgia? There is the safety aspect, of course, but I'd be more concerned about premature failure from age and wear, which would hamper the riding experience. Are these cables proprietary?

On my unlined cables and housings, I always just used grease... usually Phil's.
Oil might be fine too, but I think grease would be more likely to stay where you put it.

Steve in Peoria

Do you have cables with two soldered ends that can as a unit with the casing, or does the cable clamp to the brake caliper?

I use moly grease, but that’s not an option if you can’t take the cable out of the housing.

Some grease on you fingers—add a couple drops of tri-flow—smoosh it around a bit and wipe it on the cables before you put them back in the housing. If the have the precious fittings on the end and can’t be removed, dribble some of that super toxic PTFE stuff and let gravity do its thing.

On proprietary brake cables, I start with something thin that will clean out the old gunk/grease. Tri-flow, One-shot, or even WD-40 can work for that. Then hang them up until the fluid runs clean out the other end. After they're clean, I use a spray lithium grease - the kind you shake up the can and spray in. I spray in a liberal amount, then hang the cables up again until the grease starts to run out the other side.

If the cable housing has a crack in it, now is the time to fix that as well. I use clear or color-matched heat shrink to bandage the crack.

Cables hanging while the cleaning fluid works through:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...628_205436.jpg

The bike is a 1952 Rudge, pretty much original. I'll be showing it at Classic Rendezvous in Auburn, Indiana next week. I'd like to show people what it originally looked like as much as I can. For those with long memories, these cables are a yellowish cream color. I had a bike of similar vintage when I was a kid (1960s). Now the cable build seems mixed. The front brake cable seems to be a spiral of round wire with a plastic over jacket, while the longer cable for the rear brake are the common wound flat wire. In these days (1952) my bike was built in a Raleigh factory (Nottingham) on the same line as the Super Lenton, the top model of the Raleigh brand, and my Rudge has identical frame, parts, pricing, and design. The paint ("livery") is different between the two brands and again different from the other top models of Club bike in this model year. I don''t expect any brake cable breakage on a 20 mile ride at this vintage meetup. If I like the ride I would upgrade the cables as suggested.

As far as lube, I'll give the greasy fingers thing a try. I have a big, fresh tub of Park, so I'll use that.

Sounds good to me:thumb:

If the cable has the fixed soldered tips on both lever and caliper ends, you could just buy new whole cable assemblies or even have them made. I wouldn't want to risk my safety just because of the look of a 70+ year old cable. Going back to the original question, of the cable needs lube, that means somewhere in that housing it is almost certainly worn, maybe not enough to fray, but is that worth it? Compound that probably worn cable with the extra force you are going to need to use because the pads are also 70 years old, and you may just miss that stop sign or stoplight, at the wrong moment. Maybe this is just a display bike? Just my $.02.
Phil

I remember these from my youth. Often on mopeds, but I have seen them on bicycles as well. Remove a bit of plastic from the outer cable, kink it a bit, so as to have a small opening between the coils, and shove this over it. It is curved so it'll remain open. A few drops of oil every now and then.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...120d84dbd6.jpg

Warnings appreciated, but I went over the inner cables when I had them stripped down, and there are no abrasions, hard creases, thinned strands, or other signs of mechanical breakdown. Same for the outer cables. Remember, steel doesn't "go bad" with age, it goes bad with corrosion (if it is carbon steel), creasing (weakness due to metal fatigue) and chemical corrosion due perhaps to acid. I think there is just dirt on the cables, perhaps due to haphazard lubrication which dried on the surface. They inner cables are getting a little Park grease, and the outer cables will have a little Finish Line synthetic oil dribbled in.

I wish I had all the original ferrules, or at least a full set of well-fitting ends, but other than that I think they are mechanically pretty good. I am not racing this bike or descending the Rockies. I was worried about the original levers, but it turned out they are bent in odd places, and don't clamp the bars well. The Balilla I'm replacing them with are not bent or dented, but they are very lightweight. But again, they are near new, in-period and I am not riding PBP with them.

If you didn't spend your teen and pre-teen years making-do with ancient and questionable bikes, I can understand the worry about my approach, if taken by the general public. But I do have those experiences, and survived. On steel rims, yet!

I reuse cables often when I restore old road bikes. I clean up the exposed portions, which are usually weathered, with a green scotch pad to shine them up, then lightly coat the entire cable with Tri-Flow, adding a drop to the end of the housing where the cable gets inserted.

Did you say "steel rims" ? I still use them. When I restore wheels, I unlace all spokes from the rims and hubs 1) to make cleaning them up much easier, 2) clean off any corrosion hidden in the spoke threads and nipples, 3) to straighten any bent spokes, 4) flatten the rims and make sure they are not out-of-round prior to re-lacing and trueing.

EDIT: always note spoke pattern or "crossing" before disassembly

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You should always do what feels safest to you, but it has been my experience that many cables, especially OEM brake cables before the mid-1970s, can last the life of the bike as long as they don't get rusty. Cables most commonly fail due to oxidation, fatigue, or defect, the latter most commonly being wicking of the cable end material up the strands, exacerbating the fatigue problem. Cables sometimes, but rarely fail due to actual wear. Fatigue is an issue mostly when the cable is flexed repeatedly at the end, and this seems to be especially a problem with Shimano integrated shifters. Brake cables rarely fail due to fatigue. On a lightly ridden, adequately stored, classic bikes, I have no problem keeping their original cables after careful inspection. That's exactly what I did with my recently acquired, 1966 Frejus, right down to the cable ends!

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...77fb3a2fbb.jpg
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I am currently installing one of these on my bike. Just roll the rubber ring back and a oiler hole appears.

Alternatively, ribbed white housing is available online.

http://i.imgur.com/gxRuXg2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/19Kd4kg.jpg

45 years ago when working at the bike shop we used a gadget like this and your choice of spray lube with nozzle.

search - motorcycle cable oil injector

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...fd1e03c52.jpeg

Here are the cable oilers on my bike:

http://i.imgur.com/PKPsY8rh.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/N7sIknlh.jpg