hey guys,

i've got a question: I was working on the bike the other day (83 bianchi n. alloro) when i made a booboo and broke one of the top tube cable stays. I was wondering where I can get replacements, and what's involved in removing the broken stay and brazing the new one on.

thanks!

you can get a new one from various frame building suppliers quite easily. the tricky part is brazing it on. this process ruins the paint of course and not done right could damage the tube.

personally I would file the remains of the old on off and use a clamp on guide.

OH I almost forgot "STIMPY YOU IDIOT!!!"

I assume you mean a cable guide, not a cable stop. A framebuilder can easily and quickly remove the remnants of the old cable guide and braze a new one on, but as Bianchigirll says it ruin the paint in the area of the braze-on.

Nova Cycle Supply sells replacement guides for less than $2.00.

If it really is a cable stop, they have those, too. Cable Stops.

Where are you located?

I know it's not an ideal or perhaps even permanent solution, but I wonder if one of those cable guides could be touched up with paint and then bonded/glued to the frame? It seems to me that those cable guides don't have much force applied to them. Again, not an perfect fix, but would beat having to repaint the frame. Anyone ever tried?

ah, i suppose i meant "cable guides"

the frame is 100% stripped and ready for some rust remediation as of right now, so paint won't be a concern but i'd like to get the guide repaired if i'm going through all of this effort to repaint the frame.

i'm in southern california. if anyone can offer any recommendations on who to go to get the replacement brazed on would, i would be most appreciative.

Great!

SoCal framebuilders:

Townsend Cycles, Ltd., Monrovia, CA

Wanta Frames, Carlsbad, CA

Ybarrola Bicycles, San Diego, CA

Scooper's advice is best (have a framebuilder braze on a new guide). That said, I've no doubt a careful application of JB Weld would work just fine to affix a new guide.

i was gonna suggest super glue but if there's no paint yeah do it right

Also a good opportunity to add any other braze on bosses to the '83; ie. 2nd set of bottle bosses, pump peg, etc.

that's actually a great suggestion. thanks!

scooper, thanks for the recommendations!

perhaps this should have been in the original post. as WNG suggest I would certainly add all the brazeons you could imagine.

the same thing just happened to me, I guess the 41 year old guide for the front Derailleur just gave up the ghost. I can actually make the guide piece pretty easy in the machine shop, but has anyone thought of attaching it with a stainless steel rivet or two? This is a 41 year old Schwinn with original paint and I really hate to ruin the paint, I could braze it with silver solder if I needed to, but I dont want to ruin the paint

…I think if you did some research on that statement you might be surprised, and be quite glad that you did! (especially the ones for the brakes)

- Wil

I found a guide for less then two dollars online, it looks like it has a small tab on each side, instead of destroying the paint, has anyone else thought of drilling the tabs and using a 3/32 stainless rivet on each side? I hate to drill into the frame, but I also hate the thought of destroying the original paint and patina of the bike, I figured I could mask off the guide and paint it yellow when done, it's such a small piece that the paint mismatch wouldn't be noticeable

I think you're wrong. cable guides just keep the cables from flopping around. Cable stops do have a lot of force applied to them, but that's not what's being discussed here.

are we talking about the piece where the cable housing ends and the cable continues by itself along the frame? thats what broke off of mine. One ear broke off of the one for the front derailleur, it may have been abused at some point in the past. the one I found with the tabs, I dont see why a couple of these stainless high strength aircraft rivets wouldn't hold it, I would just have to use my one inch die grinder disc to carefully grind off the remainder of the old one

You are talking about a stop, not a guide. Why not use a clamp on stop?

mainly looks, I'm trying to decide if I can figure out a permanent way to anchor the stop without destroying the paint.there are some high strength specialized epoxies out there, that are nearly as strong as brazing, I could carefully clean up only enough steel to make a clean bond