Learn How To Place Cable Replacement in Derailleur

This is how you place the cable on a Shimano XT system. Clip the cable head off. Disconnect it from the rear derailleur. Pull the cable out. End of this has this shield here, so I am actually going to set this aside too. Now, for that right shifter, which is the rear derailleur, remove the plug and you can look in there, when you pull this, it continues to wrap the cable around a spool in there, and the cable head gets further and further from being accessible. As you release the cable, the cable head will come into view right there. So there is the cable. That's all there is to removing it. Take a new cable. If you are replacing the cable housings as well with new ones, Blue Lined Housings and a new cable, you probably don't need to lubricate this, especially if you get a coded cable. You want a real -- a light oil on the cable, and just run it down the whole length; I will just do this section here but you get the idea. I am going to push this in, and there is a hole that I can see there. Believe it or not, its ways in there that's pushing it in a hole that's about that far, that deep in there. It's kind of like threading a needle. You definitely have to look in there and get some light in there and have good eyes, but it seems like it would be a lot harder than it is. You just push the cable in through and then push it into the cable housing section. Okay. Now I can tell that I have got it in the cable hook, because I am holding it onto the cable, and sure enough and you can pull that out. I am trying to push it in. Now, I am going to put on this seal onto there, but now I got that on there, and then I slide this piece. This has a little tab on there that's going to hook into that rubber, the rubber seal. Tightened, not all the way in, but I am going to tighten this barrel adjuster in. So I want to tighten it in till it stops and then back it out, maybe a turn or so. Go ahead and slide this on to, seal the cable, slide it onto that tip. Now, on the rear derailleur, there is always a groove that indicates where the cable is going to go. So this case there is the groove. You don't want to put it over here, because mechanical advantage will be different and the derailleur will move a different amount. Obviously you want to have those things line up at the cable. There is a tab here, so you don't want this tab to flip around back there. Its got a specific place its supposed to go. So if I wanted to go further in board, I decrease the tension, and as soon as I have this lose I am going to go ahead and decrease the tension here. I didn't allow myself much adjustment range on the decreasing tension side, but I have a lot on the increasing tension side. Now indeed it goes up to there, so I am going to go ahead and tighten it up a little bit. So I am going to go through the same adjustment procedure I have showed you earlier on how to adjust the rear derailleur. So when I release cable, its not going up fast enough, and I am going to decrease the tension on here. I am happy with how this derailleur is working, so I am going to go ahead and tighten that up, so its not going to loosen up on me while I am riding. Snip it off, in the bag, that comes with the cable. There is usually a little cable end. So I will go ahead and put this one on. I just know that this particular cable crimp for a derailleur cable, skinny cable like a derailleur, I need to put it in a angle to crimp that on. So I have got a new cable on there, on the rear derailleur. Front shifter on a dual control is quite a bit different from the rear. You actually have to unscrew the screw. This cover flips open this way. Don't unscrew this one because that's the hinge. Now this just flips open. Now, that cable hook is riding here, but its not there in yet because I have this to the fully cable pull position, now I need to release cable a couple of times. Now, the cable hook is in from the bottom, so I have to push it out to the bottom there. Like that, and now bring it out the window, then I pull the cable out. I take my new cable. Again, I am going to put a little lube on it. You don't want to use grease, particularly not lithium grease on a cable, because it will really get sticky and clog it up. The tricky part is barely getting it into the end of this barrel adjuster. If you have to, you can unscrew the barrel adjuster, and putting a little bit of bend in the cable will help. There you go. Cable is in, and now get it to go in the underside of this cable hook. You want to be careful when you do this, that you don't kink the cable. So now it's into the cable hook. I am going to curl that, and it goes down. You can also wait till this point to lube the cable. Slide on your cable housing. Clip this end a little bit cleaner, since I have put a bend in it, to get it out of that cable hook. I get these started sometimes by rotating the cable housing in the direction that the cable is wound. Put that in here. So housing starts here so I can put lube, starting right there. Pop this out, push it in. Pop my cable out. I twist in the direction the cable is wound, I try to get it to pop out in there. If you see a strand that has gotten undone and wound back and it gets caught when you push it out the end and bend over, that's bad news, and you need to clip that entire section away. This is with the rear derailleur. You are looking for a groove for the cable, and there is none on this side, but you can see right here, there is one. So you push it in through there, make sure, again, this has a tab, like the rear derailleur one and there is a little notch for that tab. So push your cable through, along that groove, pull it tight. I am in the completely release cable position and front derailleur has drop down as far as it will go, so I wanted to tighten up the front shifter, and just sort of snug it up and then see how you are doing on cable tension. Okay, snug it up, and now obviously you can't pedal with all this cable flapping around, snip that off, take the little end cap that came with my cable. That's it.