Is there an easy way to fish the derailleur cables through the down tube and out the little hole below the bottom bracket?
Hello Emillo and All,
I fished my SRM cable through with piano wire. I got 3 different diameters of wire about 6 feet long (from Piano Warehouse -free) and the largest diameter worked best.
I drilled a small hole in the aluminum gromet where the shift cable comes out of the down tube and enlarged it with a dremmel tool to just slightly larger than the wire.
I shoved the piano wire down and at first it went into the chain stay tubes but after a couple of tries I could see it through the hole in the BB and fished it out with another short piece of the same wire with a hook in it.
Next put a hook on the main piano wire and pulled the SRM wire through the frame. Makes a nice clean installation. Also pulled a piece of 180 lb test fish line and left it for future installations.
Cheers,
Neal
Nice one thanks!
I fished for an hour before giving up tonight.
Hello Emillio,
I took my P3C to my LBS to get it done, thinking they do this all the time, learned that it takes as much patience for them as for us, (and they do not have a magic bullet), ended up bringing it back home and did it myself with the piano wire.
In fairness, I think it is a lot easier after the first success, because you know it is possible, and you can improve on the technique each time.
I forget which new bike brand, but I read recently that there is a new frame with guide tubes all the way through, including and extra tube for SRM cable or whatever.
That would make the job too easy!
If Shimano and Campy get their Zapp shifters going, implement the shift signal by radio, all these fishing skills will be for naught, and we will shift with our finger shift button, like the swim lap counter, and be able to do it 100 feet from the bike.
Cheers,
Neal
Emilio,
I actually haven’t had any real problems with getting them through normally i am laying under the bike and i spin the cable around until it gets close to the bottom then just get some needle nose pliers and pull it out that way.
The also is always the bend the end of the cable a bit then when you are spinning it around from the top of the down tube the bent part will come out the little hole.
Grant
What we do in our shop is to bend the end of the cable slightly. As long as you know that the bend is pointing downward it is usually pretty easy to get the end to poke out of the hole near the BB. The other technique is to use an old spoke that we made a very narrow hook on one end to pull it through if we have problems.
I can get the cables out of any of the carbon Cervelos in just a couple of minutes.
It’s official! We are all GEEKS… Who’d else spend Friday night poking a cable through a bike frame?
I wander if it is going to work the way some HR monitors did - i.e pickup somebody else’s signal for a while and see his/her reading or your (you+other person) ‘combined’ reading… It would be a lot of fun if wireless shifting works like this. Shift your mates’ gears all the time on a group ride or get a 56x11 near the top of a hill, because somebody 100 ft. ahead who’s descending already has shifted into his/her smallest sprocket.
Nick.
I use an instrument I made by straightening a large paper clip some and then re-bending it the way I thought is necessary. Basically you need to intercept the cable somewhere in the tube, scrape it out and hold it near the hole. Then pull the cable back until you know the cable end is near and then use a second paper clip tool with a smaller hook to just pull it out. It’s true after the first couple of times cable installation times drop dramatically 
I think even my slavic arsenal of swear/curse vocabulary was exhausted at some point during my first attempt.
Nick.
Thanks Darrell. I have done it and gotten it, and have succeeded doing it quite a few times, but was just wondering is someone had figured something that did not require any fishing at all.
I will finally got it through, but will try the spoke idea. Just trying to find the quick way.
Thanks Nick, I will try this is well. I actually tried using a cable that I looped and stuck through the hole. That is how I got it through late last night. But again it is trial and error.
Leaving the fishng line in there permanently may be the call.
It sounds like you got some good advice but I’ll add my .02 anyway.
I’m not a bike mechanic but I’ve ran more Cat5, phone, and electrical wire than I’d like to remember. When I fish a new wire inside a cavity wall I first drop a thin string with a weight attached at the end. Then from the bottom I insert a coat hanger or bent wire with a hook on the end. Twirl the wire with the hook on it and it will catch the string and you can pull it through. Then you can attach the real wire onto the string and pull it through.
Is there an easy way to fish the derailleur cables through the down tube and out the little hole below the bottom bracket?
Keep the frame horizontal (don’t put it upside down or anything like that) then stuff the cable down and rotate it around its axis. I don’t think it has ever taken me more than 20 seconds. Maybe we’ll make an instructional video.
Hello My friend,
I hope you are well. An instructional video would be really helpful. 20 seconds, huh? Well it would not be a very long video.