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Crossed cables in a attitude

1K views 7 replies 5 participants last post by  SoCalDesertRider 
#1 ·
I'm considering crossing the shifter cables in the down tube of my attitude. I did it to my Quantum and the shifting improved slightly. the way I see it the easiest way of doing it is to get rid of the plastic tubes that the cables ride in. But would I be inviting water and dirt into the down tube? To save the tubes I'd need the special tool to remove the cable stops at the top of the down tube. How does this tool work?

Any opinions would be appreciated.
 
#3 ·
I built the bike up from a frame. The tech manual from 2001 clearly says that the tubes should be cut so they extend from the frame about 1". I'm not opposed to ditching the tubes it just seems that there should be some sort of seal where the cables leave the frame. In the winter I've had the cables get wet. then you downshift water gets pulled into the tube and freezes and then you can't upshift. :mad: I guess what I'm worried about is getting water into the bottom bracket and having trouble getting it out when I need to.
 
#5 ·
G-reg said:
The tubes should be there, and why don't you cross them inside the DT also?
I spoke to Trek tech support about this very issue, and the tubes are only supposed to be there to help initial cable installation. If you bought the bike as a frame only, you should have the tubes. You're supposed to remove them once you install the cables. If you bought a complete bike from your LBS, the tubes shouldn't be there.
 
#6 ·
I think that the new Attitudes with the derail. cables in the top tube should be without the liners, as with the brake cable in the top tube of the older models. But in the older models and road bikes with the derail cables in the down tube, the liners should be there. Even if Trek says they shouldn’t be there…it would make no sense without them.
 
#7 ·
G-reg said:
Even if Trek says they shouldn't be there…it would make no sense without them.
The only purpose the liners serve is to help you route the cables. They actually add friction to the cables if left in place once the bike is assembled. If you don't want to take my word for it, check out page 62 of the Klein Tech Manual (found here) which, in Step 4, instructs the mechanic to remove the liner from the frame after the cable is installed. The manual also recommends to save the liner since it's again useful when replacing internally routed cables.
 
#8 ·
I know this is an old discussion topic, but it's very interesting to me, as I just finished, for the most part, building a new 2001 or 2002 (not sure which year it is) Attitude bare frame I got from the local Klein dealer as new-old-stock, never been built or sold, still in the original wrappings :). I'm very excited to get the bike completed and take her on her virgin ride next weekend :D.

Ok, the rest of this is going to be long, so you'll have to bear with me. Hopefully reading it will help somebody and your ideas on what I've done may help me as well, as this is the first Klein frame I've built....

The frame came with the white plastic cable guide tubes installed in the down tube and top tube with blue masking tape over the ends (to keep them in place in the frame during handling, I presume). The dealer told me they are for installation purposes only and explained how to use them to route the cables into the bike, since I've never messed with Klein's internal cable routing before.

I'm using a hydraulic rear disc brake and am using zip ties and duct tape to guide the brake line along the frame for now, so the cable guide in the top tube is of no use to me, but I am leaving it in the frame for now since I may in the future disconnect my hydraulic brake line and run it inside the frame and having the guide tube in there will help at that time. I asked the dealer about running the hose inside the frame, and he said it has been done sucessfully by other people, it just means cutting off the hose fitting, pulling out the cable stops in the frame, running the hose, and putting a new fitting on the end of the hose. I'll deal with that later, right now I just want to get the bike running, so zip ties and duct tape will have to do for a while. Untill then, I'm going to just leave the ends of the cable guide tube taped to the side of the frame like it was when I got it so it doesn't work it's way out as I ride. It will look kinda hokey for a while, but I'm anxious to ride this thing! :D

Anyways, I'll get to point of this now-- when I ran the derailuer cables, I ran them down the inside of the white plastic tubes, as the dealer had said to do during the installation. The tubes are flared at the front of the bike and angle cut at the rear of the bike. So, after running the cables into the tubes, I simply pushed the tubes into the openings at the front of the down tube untill the flared end stopped at the cable housing stop in the frame, then pushed the cable housing into the stop, up against the flared tube end, and then at the other end of the bike, I cut the tubes down so that they ended just before the cable goes into the plastic cable guide screwed onto the bottom of the bottom bracket shell, and ran the bare cables on to the front derailure and back to the rear derailuer cable stop, leaving the white guide tubes in the frame instead of taking them out as the dealer had said I should do.

The cables and derailuers seem to operate fine with the guide tubes in place, and the guide tubes seem to protect the cables from chafing as they enter and exit the frame as well as providing somewhat of a seal against dirt and water getting into the frame through the cable openings, so that was part of my reason for leaving them in there. The other reason was the flared ends on the tubes. If the tubes were supposed to be removed after running the cables, as the Klein dealer said they should be, then it seems the flared ends should have been on the rear end of the frame, not the front end, since the guides would need to be pulled out the back of the frame, not the front, since the cables are connected to the shifters and pulling the tube out the front would mean pulling the cable out with it and then having to re-install the cables without the guide tubes, which would defeat the purpose of having guide tubes in there in the first place.

Maybe the factory installed the guide tubes with the flared ends in the wrong direction on my frame, I don't know... Anyhow, the flared ends seem to work great for keeping the guide tube from pulling through the frame after installing the cables, so leaving them in makes sense to me and I don't see where they are hurting anything being in there. :)

As far as increasing cable friction, I don't notice any difference in how the shifters feel on this bike than on any other bike I've had without extra tubes around the cables. I haven't ridden the bike yet though, since I still have a couple parts left yet to put on the bike, but if I have problems with the shifting that I suspect are due to the guides being in there, I guess I'll have to remove them and see if it fixes the problem. If so, I'll put a message on here stating what happened so someone else can learn from my possible mistake.

On another issue, I have read on here that the cables should be crossed inside the down tube, however, my cable guides were not installed crossed by Klein. My front shifter cable goes in the left side and comes out the left side and enters the bottom bracket cable guide on the left side, which is the side that directs the cable into the hole in weld area of the chainstay tubes, then on up to the front derailuer. If they were crossed, then the cable guide on the bottom bracket would be directing my front shifter cable to my rear derailuer and vice-versa, unless my frame's bottom bracket cable guide was also installed backwards by Klein. I somehow doubt that Klein consistently messed up the guide installations that badly on my frame, so I'm assuming my un-crossed cable install is correct?? It seems to work fine on my frame anyways.... :)

As another side note, I'm using a SRAM X-Gen front derailuer instead of the Shimano XT derailuer usually found on Kleins. Apparently the XT derailuer must attatch the cable more to the right side of the bike than my SRAM derailuer (it's been a while since I've had an XT front derailuer to play with, so I don't really remember how they are built) because that's where the cable wanted to go as it came up through the tiny guide holes in the bottom of the frame behind the bottom bracket shell, in the weld area between the chainstays. My SRAM deraiuer needed the cable to come up more to the left side of the bike and running the cable through the frame holes (the ones in the weld area of the chainstays) would have caused the cable to have to make a turn as it came out of the top hole and thus rub badly on the frame.

I ended up taking the cable out of the hole and just running the cable around the back side of the weld instead of through the holes and used a small section of the aforementioned installation guide tubes that I had previously trimmed the ends off of, to keep the cable from rubbing the frame down there and secured it in place by grinding a small notch in the front of anti-chain-suck plate that I got with my frame and pushed the chain suck plate against the guide tube, capturing it between the plate and the frame so it wouldn't jiggle around and work it's way up the cable, exposing the cable to the frame in that area of cable/frame interference.

I'll see how it works out as I start riding the bike, right now it's just what seems to me like a 'good idea'... Thinking back on it, I guess I could have run the piece of guide tube through the holes in the frame and possibly accommplished the same thing, as it looks like the tube would probably fit through the holes, and having the tube in there, I guess it wouldn't matter if the cable had to make a turn as it comes out of the hole, as long as the guide tube sticks out a bit to protect it. If my method doesn't work out too good, I may try that out.

Thanks for your patience, and possible ideas!
 
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