Monday, October 02, 2006

More routing

Well, today led to a little more fettling of the brake cable routing. It might seem pedantic but I am very keen that the brakes work well. Really, really well. See, if they don't, I'll be wondering why I didn't get hydraulic brakes. There are 3 reasons. One: Paul Price. Two: I don't fancy ripping a hydraulic hose asunder in the Highlands. Three: ease of work for me. So, you can see, there is a lot 'riding' (bwahahahahahahaha!) on the brakes working well and for a long time.

Anyways, today was for the Nokon sections. I had not quite decided on how I was going to route the cable past the seat tube. Initially I went right, then I went left. The latter is better in every way. I used a combination of small and large segments of Nokon cable with 2 sections I can split on the top tube for lubing (if you have never used Boeshield, find some and use, frequently, for your cable brakes). The front brake goes from Nokon with shrink wrap next to the lever (to prevent kinking, which I have had on the RoShamBo a fair amount, to the stage that the inner has split now) then a run of Nokon to another section shrink wrapped immediately prior to an Avis link pipe onto the Full Metal Jacket. This is kept in place by the funny loop the FMJ comes with and I used a Snap On tube bender to achieve a curve so that the FMJ can directly go to the Avid BB7 caliper. I revised the curve after reviewing the pics I have collected of Jeff Jones built bikes (I am not too proud to admit I keep an archive of these pics for just such occasions....bloody OCD). It feels like there is no cable friction whatsoever.

The rear is more complicated. Again a shrink wrapped Nokon section, then free, then shrink wrapped again to prevent head tube scuffing. Then I used an alloy cable stop so I didn't have to run outer along the top tube. All I had to do was pop out the inner guide tube they were sold with and run the Nokon inner straight through. This was repeated at the rear, then I initially routed around the right side of the seat tube, but changed to the left to get a smoother line.

The join between the last section of FMJ, which has a 3d bend in it to run straight to the caliper, was done twice. Again the initial shrink wrap used the Avid supplied adhesive stuff which proved too stiff and led to a sharp cable bend. I used the shrink wrap (throughout) I obtained from Maplins (7mm, shrinks to half that minimum at 125degrees c....I used a hairdryer) and got a much better line.

I was pleased by the whole thing...now all I have to do is square away the rhythmical rubbing on the rear disc and wait for the cranks...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can you do the cables on all of my bikes please?

dRjON said...

it *is* a little over the top. If anyone wonders why jones bikes are somewhat expensive, the man-hours onthe brakes alone is prolly well up ther...this took me 7 hours +!

still, its all good fun...i love messing about with the details..

Alex said...

Bloody fantastic :) Can you answer me one more question (that Fishers can't) "How long is the FMJ steel tube?"

Need to know where to put the zip-tie cable guides ;)

Alex

dRjON said...

will measure...i thinkits about 440mm will get back to you...

FixieDave said...

Very nice brake lines!

dRjON said...

alex: 40cm tube...