Gear cable housing ends protruding into shifter, blocking it, is this normal??

amityweb

After some front derailleur adjustment earlier my Sora front shifter wouldn't work. No clicking, hardly any cable movement. After a couple of hours of fiddling I notice right inside some ends of cables inside the shifter. They were going into the cable housing. I pulled the cable housing out and woah! lots of long cable ends sticking into the mechanism and blocking it. See the pic below. Now that looks mental to me. Without it the shifters move all the way and clicks fine now, so they were clearly blocking it. The shifter would not move all the way, because where the gap is in the third pic which is supposed to go around the gear cable was being blocked by these wires, so not going all the way. The rear shifter doesn't have these, I can see only the gear cable which slides through the gap fine.

Anyway, is this normal? I can't imagine it normal, how would it happen? Has it always been like this, or can they somehow extend out of the housing after some time? Can I cut them off, or need a new housing?

Been using the shifters for 3 years now, strange this happens today when I was fiddling with the front derailleur adjustment.



4 wires visible which block the movement of the shifter



all the ends visible inside the shifter including that weird longer one with the bent end



A friend thought my gear cable nipple has come off, so this pic is to show its not the gear cable, its the housing

redvee

New gear outer needed given the age of the old ones. Luckily with your shifters it will be a quite easy job to do.

trailflow

The plastic ferrule on the end of your outer cable has failed. The centre hole should be only big enough for the cable to slide through. Not the strands.

To fix it you can cut down the outer cable (neatly dont leave any protruding strands otherwise they will interfere with the cable) and then put a metal ferrule on to prevent it happening again. a new plastic ferrule would still work but it won't be as strong.

or buy a new outer cable and new ferrule.

svetty

The inner cable has failed.

You need to extract all the strands of old cable from within the shifter - try inserting a fresh cable from the 'wrong' end of the shifter and push the old cable and nipple out backwards - and fit a new inner. I don't tend to bother with a ferrule at the shifter end of the outer cable - just cut it neatly with a proper cable cutter - but a new one wouldn't hurt.

keef66

I take it from your earlier posts that the inner cable is not the issue and it isn't in the pics?

I think Trailflow has it. The ferrule has failed so the guts of the outer cable have been pushed into the shifter. You can see the separate wire strands and the plastic liner.

You could trim it neatly and fit a new ferrule, but IME when the outer cable starts to go like that you're far better off just replacing it. My winter bike's done it a couple of times now, but fortunately at the downtube cable stop, not at the shifter end.

svetty

Ah, OK see it now - photos somewhat confusing. The strands in the lower photo are the longitudinal wires forming the structure of the outer cable and not the severed ends of inner cable protruding.

I seldom fit a ferrule to the outer cable end at the shifter and have never had the outer foul the shifter workings. Possibly when the outer was cut there was a sharp roughened end which has allowed the casing to cut through the ferrule and foul the shifter?

Moral is to cut the outer cleanly and squarely.

tsarouxaz

come on! do you think it is normal?? come on!

keef66

tsarouxaz wrote:

come on! do you think it is normal?? come on!

No, it's not normal. But it does sometimes happen. I've seen it twice on one of my bikes. Easily sorted with a new bit of cable outer. And a new ferrule if the shifter requires one.

Hope that helps.