Internal Brake Cable Rattle

radhartgeorge

Hi Folks,

I've had a little project on the side for the past 6 months, putting together various components that had been temporarily 'retired' in order to get a complete functioning bike. It serves a dual purpose of tidying up the garage and creating a bike for friends to use if they visit... anyway...

The frame is an old (2011/12) Trek Madone 5.2 which has an internally routed rear brake cable. It's been set up with Ultegra 6800 brakes and Jagwire cable/outers. Initially, when set up with a cable/sleeve/cable setup it was plagued by awful spongy braking. I decided to bore out the grommets sufficiently to install full length 5mm Jagwire outer cable but running internally. While the braking is now lovely it has created an awful rattle on anything but the smoothest road surface - the cause is essentially the outer cable rattling against the inside of the top tube- primarily a few inches back from the front grommet.

Which brings be to my question, has anyone developed some clever solution to this? I thought about injecting some kind of expanding foam but haven't because (1) it's seems a rather permanent solution that could prevent me from changing the cable again and (2) I could only access the top tube from the rear grommet hole when the cable is in place so the foam may not reach the front where the noise is coming from. Surely I'm not the first person to suffer this fate?

Ant thoughts, ideas, answers etc are hugely welcomed.

R

StillGoing

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

CitizenLee

My mate used one of those stick on window seal strips to stop his internal cables from rattling on his MTB.

Vino'sGhost

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

paulbnix

I bought a Decathlon foam swimming tube and cut it into sections that I rammed down the top tube.
This was on a Planet X Maratona frame and there was good access from the headtube into the top tube.
A few grams extra weight but blissful silence.

StillGoing

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

Vino'sGhost

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

have you done this?

Livewire

Depending on the size of the access holes on your frame you can wrap bubble wrap around the cable to stop the rattling. Rattling cables drive me crazy and this method worked on my road bike. Decent size access holes on the bottom of BB shell made this possible but may not work on other frames.

I basically cut a length of bubble wrap, wrapped it round the cable loosely with a bit of tape round the end and then threaded it through the frame along the length of cable. Was very fiddly and I had to get the wife to assist but no more annoying cable rattle for me.

Vino'sGhost

with the exception of one bike which has an internal rear brake cable (and fortunately doesnt rattle) all my other bikes have external cable routing.

something im glad of

radhartgeorge

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

Brilliant ideas- exactly why I love this forum. Ashamed to say I didn't think about accessing it from the headtube and/or seatpost!

Will determine which of these methods I use once I know how much access I have.

Thanks Philthy3.

Rad

StillGoing

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

have you done this?

No, Meridas don't rattle and have foam sleeves already around the cable outers. Di2 has something similar to cable ties along the cable lengths to prevent rattling, which I put on by accessing from the head tube before passing the eTube cables back through the bike.

Livewire

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

have you done this?

No, Meridas don't rattle and have foam sleeves already around the cable outers. Di2 has something similar to cable ties along the cable lengths to prevent rattling, which I put on by accessing from the head tube before passing the eTube cables back through the bike.

My cables still rattled even with the cable tie things that come as standard on the Di2 cables. I think it is because the downtube is quite large on my bike so they probably work well on smaller downtubes.

Vino'sGhost

Livewire wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

have you done this?

No, Meridas don't rattle and have foam sleeves already around the cable outers. Di2 has something similar to cable ties along the cable lengths to prevent rattling, which I put on by accessing from the head tube before passing the eTube cables back through the bike.

My cables still rattled even with the cable tie things that come as standard on the Di2 cables. I think it is because the downtube is quite large on my bike so they probably work well on smaller downtubes.

ahhh im still in the dark ages with mechanical DA too. but one day i too will know the pleasure of rattling internaly routed cables

darkhairedlord

Check the cable is well sealed where you drilled the "grommets" out or water will get in and dissolve the frame from the inside.
To fix the rattle you could spray in some expanding foam, that should do it!

Livewire

Vino'sGhost wrote:

Livewire wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Vino'sGhost wrote:

philthy3 wrote:

Presumably you can access the cable outer via the head tube? It'll be tight, but if you can pull the end through to the head tube and insert the outer in some foam tubing cut to the length of the top tube and then thread it all back in, it should dampen any rattling against the top tube.

Alternatively, add a few uncut cable ties along the length of the cable outer to prevent it moving too much.

cable ties? sinched around the outer but not trimmed so that they stick up and prevent the cable touching the walls? nice idea.

But (genuine question) how would you tighten them up inside the tube????

You tighten them around the cable outer before re-inserting it via the head tube. Der! :roll:

have you done this?

No, Meridas don't rattle and have foam sleeves already around the cable outers. Di2 has something similar to cable ties along the cable lengths to prevent rattling, which I put on by accessing from the head tube before passing the eTube cables back through the bike.

My cables still rattled even with the cable tie things that come as standard on the Di2 cables. I think it is because the downtube is quite large on my bike so they probably work well on smaller downtubes.

ahhh im still in the dark ages with mechanical DA too. but one day i too will know the pleasure of rattling internaly routed cables

Don't do it, I am sure what you have already works perfectly well!!

CitizenLee

There are videos on YouTube with various different fixes, including the cable tie method.

StillGoing

darkhairedlord wrote:

Check the cable is well sealed where you drilled the "grommets" out or water will get in and dissolve the frame from the inside.
To fix the rattle you could spray in some expanding foam, that should do it!

Now I hope people realise you're joking.