Brake cable question

[Dominic]

I must be feeling particularly thick today. How the hell do you thread the inner brake cable into the Ergo lever and back into the outer cable the end of which is firmly attached to the lever?

I have looked on Park tools website and you just wiggle it, my ar$e!!!!!

Secondly what tool do you need to take an Octablink crank off the bottom bracket? The left crank that Ribble sent me is stripped and apart from knackering the pedal I tried to put in it I need to take it off to send it back and don't seem to have the right tool

[George]

Release the inner cable from the rear mech and then lift the outer edge of the rubber lever hood so that you can push the old nipple out.

You feed the new cable in and down through the cable port, taking it slowley at first so the cable end enters the outer cable without any problem.

Then seat the lever hood back down nicely.

Hope this helps

[Dominic]

Thanks for that George but it is the brake cable.

When I feed it back through into the lever it is impossible to see the end of the cable and to line it up with the end of the outer that is in the lever. I have tried taking the lever off to see underneath but you can't see anything. I have tried pulling the end of the outer cable from the lever but it seems to be fairly well in there and I am very hesitant to pull it very hard. Ooh her missus

[Elliot M]

I don't know about the brake cable, but for an octalink crank (so you're running half Campag, half Shimano?), you can use a normal crank extractor, but you need to put a little metal thing that looks a bit like a top hat in the hollow axle to block it off so the extractor can press against it.

You could try using a nut or something, but i can tell you coins do not work, they just bend!

if you haven't already got a crank extractor, new ones should come with some kind of attachment that does the same job

[Dominic]

I was being thick. I was trying to thread it into the gear inner, hence why I couldn't do it. This wasn't helped by the fact that the brake inner wasn't cut neat enough and couldn't actually go into the inner. Thanks to the kind people at Bike plus.

Elliot thank you for that I have two crank extractors so will have to see what I can do. I have Campag on my road bike and I am using Shimano on the TT bike I am putting together. The only reason I went with Shimano is because I had Shimano bar end shifters in my tool box

Thanks again to you all.

[Dr Frigo]

I had the same problem with inserting cables building my bike the other day, having never changed the cables on a road bike before! I almost gave up before realising it was actually pretty obvious.

For Octalink, if it's anything like mtb parts the crank bolts should come with a self extractor, no? You just unthread the bolt with the 8mm allen, keep going after you feel the pressure against the bb, and the crank arm comes off.

[Dominic]

Elliot you are a genius. Your mentioning the coin was ideal. I had only put the crank on a week ago and never ridden the bike. I was intending going and tightening everything up prior to it's first ride.

A one pence piece blocked off the hole perfectly and I just punched it out the other side. Now to see if Ribble will send me a replacement