First off, want to mention that I have very limited experience with bike repair/maintenance.
My girlfriend's daughter has a 2015 (I think that is the year – if not, it is no more than like 3 or 4 years after that like 2016-2019) Trek Fuel Ex 8 bike. She wanted to change the dropper post and I made the mistake of pulling out the entire cable for it that runs inside the frame (cable outer sheath, etc.). I have tried to run the cable back through the frame for a few hours tonight. I attempted several times to use a string tied to a metal screw and dropping it through the entrance hole in the frame near the fork and rocking it out of the seat tube. I was successful once, but the string was too short and the string fell out the seat tube. I thought that it would be easy to do again, so used a longer string. But, after several attempts, I was not able to get another string to come out of the seat tube. The idea was to get a string run through – and then tie/tape the string to the end of the dropper post cable – and then pull the dropper post cable through.
So now, I have the situation where I have like maybe 3 metal screws with various lengths of broken string – and one small socket head (like maybe 6 mm) – stuck in the frame tube, rattling around and/or maybe tangled in some of the broken string.
Thus, here is my current plan:
I want to remove the metal screws and the socket head I have lost in the frame tube. I had the idea to remove them by removing the crank/bottom bracket and found this video that describes what tools I need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxn4UiyepwY
My question is, if I remove the crank/bottom bracket – is there a hole in the frame in that area (the area of the frame where the bottom bracket is) where I might be able to extract the metal screws and socket head that I used in my failed attempts to fish a string through the frame?
by No_Way7713
1 Comment
Magnets. The frame is aluminium and the bolts and socket head are probably magnetic, so try to drag them along and out the frame with a strong magnet. If that works it’s a LOT easier than removing and reinstall a bottom bracket.
For routing cables, you’ve learnt your lesson now not to remove the old cable housing but magnets is also the answer here. You can buy cables with magnets attached to the end that you use another magnet to drag it through the frame, then attach a cable housing to the end of that and pull it through the frame.
If you hadn’t removed the cable housing then there’s a different connector that you can use that attaches two cable housings together to pull through.