Hi all, My winter project is rebuilding my '86 Centurion Lemans RS. I have had the bike since new, and everything but tires and bar wrap is original. I am planning on replacing cables, chain (though probably not gears as they seem to be in good shape), bearings and ???. My question is, assuming my lbs has cables and housing, do I order full lengths and cut to size, or do they come pre-cut? I think I follow the instructions in my bike repair manual, but am kind of lost as how to begin this.

If I did this right, here is the before picture. Thanks for any help

bob,
buy lots of tools and watch youtube videos on how to do exactly what your doing at the time welcome to C&V

Welcome!

My wife bought a similar Centurion in 1986 and still rides it occasionally.

Great bikes!

Just ask questions. plenty of folks will help you.

You're off to a good start with a bike repair stand.
If you don't already have them, prepare to drop some dough on proper tools. You'll quickly pay for them in shop labor savings.

Buy good quality housings and cables - you'll be cutting them to length. The LBS can sell it to you by the foot (Jagwire L3 is good quality) or you can buy packaged cable sets that include inner cables and housings.

+1 on the youtube education. Lots of good stuff there. The Park Tools site has some good videos as well.

If you have not had the bike tuned since you bought it, I'd recommend tearing it down to the frame and overhauling it. It is fun, empowering and pretty straghtforward if you have average mechanical skills.

If you get stuck, hit up the Mechanical subforum here.

Good luck and have fun!!!!!

One word of advice: The Park Tool cable cutter. Okay, that's four words, five if you count the "the". Cables need to be cut cleanly so they don't fray. Jagwire cable housings are harder than you'd think and can't be cut easily with your typical wire cutters.

+1 on the Park cable cutters

+1 to that

hozan cutters all the way... in fact buy everything hozan makes. you won't regret it...

inner cables generally come as a set length that you feed through your brake levers or shift levers and then cut off the excess at the end after it goes through the component, which is then usually capped and crimped so it doesnt split and unwind. as stated above cable housing is sold by the foot, if you dont buy the recommended cutter you should just bring in your old housing to the LBS and have them cut it to the same length (assuming u want it to be the same length as before). from there you basically want to set it all up with little to no slack, you tube will be better for this part so you can SEE how to do it all. good luck and have fun.