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Getting seriously hacked off with the front mech cable on my Tempest lasting about 6 weeks in the winter before needing replacment. It's an utterly stupid design where there's full length outer either to a stop on the back of the BB, or up to the mech itself, exactly where it gets constantly filled with mud and water. I've tried fancy stainless cables, fancy cable end thingies with the little sleeve/boot things, but in that position nothing stops the muck getting into the outer.
I'd like to switch to inner cable only with a new outer cable stop on the downtube. No-one I've spoken to will weld one on; one place offered to drill a hole and rivet one but that sounds like a terrible idea. I think I could bond a stop onto one of the cable guides with some thin wire reinforcement and epoxy.
I have a plastic cable guide for the bottom of the BB and could tap the drain hole to take the mounting screw, but this would prevent it draining, and I'm nervous about drilling any new holes in the bike. Does anyone know if you can glue those BB cable guides on and have them last properly? Or do I need to drill a new drain hole and hope it doesn't burst into flames/crack?
A hollow rivet could be used to fix the plastic cable guide and would still allow the BB to drain.
one of these (or similar) to terminate the outer up near the headtube on one of the existing outer cable mounts...?
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/cables/jagwire-cable-guide-stopper-50-mm-black-each/
then use a hollow bolt to bolt the cable guide on...?
cut the bolt down or use washers to space the bolt out so it was flush inside the BB shell...?
hole through the bolt will be smaller than the current hole.. but should allow stuff to drain out...?
Just go wireless?
I think I could bond a stop onto one of the cable guides with some thin wire reinforcement and epoxy.
Would a Jagwire Cable Guide Stopper do the job for you instead?
Could you put up with outer to the front of the BB? using something like this:
BB cable guide with Stops (for a Trek)
Avoids the need to modify the frame beyond tapping a hole under the BB (if there's not one already).
spacehopper's suggestion above isn't a bad one but I'm not sure I'd trust it retrained on a ZIp tie, something a bit more rigid would make sense, could the existing cable tie on point be sahllow drilled and tapped for a bolt on cable stop (say 2x M4 fixings?) you could then go back to the full outer at a later date if you wanted.
Silly question, are you running a full rear guard?
Edit: I'd also suggest 2 sections to the outer, put one of those in-line barrel adjusters or the old "cable oilers in just before the first cable tie position, so that you only ever have to replace the downward section and not the section under the bar tape to the shifter, and/or you can take off tension have a bit of slack and separate the outers to flush through/add oil.
Assume it's SRAM?
Assume it’s SRAM?
Is Shimano any better?
I'm now panicking that I've just bought a new bike with full cable routing and this 'feature'! Thankfully it's a bike that will probably have full guards all year round as well.
Why not just cut down a mudguard? Attach it to the chainstay bridge as normal, add a band on front mech adaptor above the front mech and cut the mudguard to match the position and then zip tie the top of the remaining mudguard piece to it. The guard will be almost invisible behind the chainset and will keep the crap off the mech cables and possibly off some of the mech too.
Thanks for the suggestions. A hollow bolt or rivet is interesting. I was only going to use an M4 but could go up to M6 with a hole through. I'll have a look for rivets as well. No guards, it's an off road bike with 2.1" xc tyres on.
There’re quite a few FS bikes that have a mud deflector on the lower suspension, but if it’s an off-road bike only, why not run it 1x like pretty much every other off road bike?
+1 on a downtube + seatpost guards to keep the crud off the front mech. Ceeway for cable guides and stops. Not sure bonding is strong enough but I’d use MMA adhesive vs epoxy as it has greater shear strength.