campag ilink how to....

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

i threatened to do this a while ago and as i was retaping my bars i had a chance to get some pics...



ok first of all if you don't care about power cords, want less weight and want an easy install.....

use std ilinks for the brakes and mini ilinks for the shifter......


first of all take your old housings and make up a suitable length of ilink house thats basically the same length. make4 sure you compress the linkings so the length is accurate.
start on one side of the bike first it's easier over all....

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choose the right end peice to suit the adjuster/cable guild your using ( totally same method for both brakes and shifter...)

then fed in the liner with the flared end winding up at the shifter end of the housing. ( only the front cables get fed through this way )

if the liner isn't flared then flare it out with something the right shape.. heat the tool your going to use to encourage the liner to stay flared
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trim the liner so that you have a couple of cm hanging out of the end of the housing...

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the reason for this is..... it gives you a little room to increase the length of the housings and more importantly by having the liner extending past the end of the housing it makes the liner less likely to migrate into the shifter body, an issue some have had.

once your happy with the length thread the housings on to the cables and straight into the shifter bodies, no ferrules or extensions needed, straight in. You'll have to file the brake cable stops down as they are 0.5mm ish too large in OD, as they are lead this only takes a second. Then tape the cables/housings down onto your bars using cheap clear packing tape. it doesn't stretch so your cables wont move under the tape at all
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fead the extended liner through the adjuster/cable guide and make sure its pulled all the way through, you don't want it bunching at the flared end..
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now is the time to add #06 o-rings to your housings and #02 o-rings to your free cable under the top tube to avoid cable rub and having to use less elegant solutions

for the rear brake cable and the rear mech cable you need to feed the liner in so that the flared end is at the mech/brake end, the opposite way to the front housings...
also you'll need to use the longer ferrules the kit comes with... you could cut them down a bit in my opinion and the cheap graphics come off with a little acetone very easy..

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the clip in housing ferrules go into the brake and the mech respectively

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a note about the rear mech section... i read somewhere a long time ago that the magic length for a rear mech housing is 292mm which is basically how the campag std cable comes out of the box... for reasons unknown it totally works and i never mess with the old law, you could make it shorter but i wouldn't bother, no point in having a lightweight bike that shifts like a dog.

also a word of warning about the std ilink cables, they stretch... you'll need to pre stretch the shifter cables or you'll loose gears...
with the rear mech start in the 11 and shift as far as you can with out turing the cranks... stretch em real good then re adjust the cable pinch bolts...
i'm going to upgrade to DLC cables as soon as fairwheel get them all back into stock, i think they are a much better cable..

:thumbup:

by Weenie


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astranoc
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by astranoc

Thanks for that. So you didn't use any ferrules at all?

I didn't know what to do to make them fit the campag holes so we filed them down and we got them there somehow. Unfortunately we couldn't do that this for the gear cables as we need to file them even more to fit, but they kept breaking. Aren't you afraid that the little plastic casing will break inside the shifter?

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

astranoc wrote:Thanks for that. So you didn't use any ferrules at all?

I didn't know what to do to make them fit the campag holes so we filed them down and we got them there somehow. Unfortunately we couldn't do that this for the gear cables as we need to file them even more to fit, but they kept breaking. Aren't you afraid that the little plastic casing will break inside the shifter?




The casings are made of alloy. I totally don't expect any issues at all.
The mini I links fit the shifter slot in the ergos perfectly so no ferrules are needed.
The links are strong enough if left alone.
The ergos are designed to work without using ferrules on the cables so I simply followed that idea.

Other than the before mentioned cable stretch I've had zero
Issues

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astranoc
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by astranoc

Cheers sugarkane, I probably need to recable mine :)

Btw do you know if I can buy the inner cable alone somewhere?

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

astranoc wrote:Cheers sugarkane, I probably need to recable mine :)

Btw do you know if I can buy the inner cable alone somewhere?


For the brake cable liner I'd use power cords liner, not sure for the shifter liner, if your using std I links the power cords liner would also work if you got minis a smaller one is needed. I think gore cables comes with the right sized stuff. I found I only needed half of the stuff that came with the kit so I have enought to re line the housings..

I'm getting a set of DLC cables from Fairwheel, they should eliminate the need for recableing As they won't shed any coating, I'll only need to replace the cable liner every 6 months or so

http://fairwheelbikes.com/kcnc-dlc-dera ... 6daf319d22

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

I did read somewhere here that there was a guy selling em via a blog that surpled liners kits...


The power cords stuff I mentioned is the 'power cords nokons' stuff

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astranoc
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by astranoc

Thanks again, appreciate the share of knowledge :) For the brake cable I reused one from the original campag since I managed to get one of the alligators frayed and it fit just fine. Ideally I would like to put back the alligator one, but I might try the power-cords too. I vaguely remember though someone said that they don't fit the planet-x brakes?

I am using mini i-links for the gears, would the DLC fit or I need smaller ones?

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

astranoc wrote:Thanks again, appreciate the share of knowledge :) For the brake cable I reused one from the original campag since I managed to get one of the alligators frayed and it fit just fine. Ideally I would like to put back the alligator one, but I might try the power-cords too. I vaguely remember though someone said that they don't fit the planet-x brakes?

I am using mini i-links for the gears, would the DLC fit or I need smaller ones?



The DLC cables are 1.1mm so they are totally perfect for the Job

Before you remove any cables from your bike use a drop of super glue on the cut end after you remove the cable crimp... This will stop it fraying if you need to re use it...
If I find a place that sells the liner I'll put it in here..

natiedean24
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by natiedean24

Very nice post! Not sure if I will ever upgrade my housing, but nice to know this instruction is here if I ever want to.

How is the performance of the ilink system compared to stock Campy cables/housing? Do you give up much (any) precision in shifting or breaking feel?

Keywords: Campagnolo, Campy, ilink

MDiddy
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by MDiddy

natiedean24 wrote:Very nice post! Not sure if I will ever upgrade my housing, but nice to know this instruction is here if I ever want to.

How is the performance of the ilink system compared to stock Campy cables/housing? Do you give up much (any) precision in shifting or breaking feel?

Keywords: Campagnolo, Campy, ilink

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sugarkane
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by sugarkane

natiedean24 wrote:Very nice post! Not sure if I will ever upgrade my housing, but nice to know this instruction is here if I ever want to.

How is the performance of the ilink system compared to stock Campy cables/housing? Do you give up much (any) precision in shifting or breaking feel?

Keywords: Campagnolo, Campy, ilink




Once it was set up I reckon it's as good as the campag stuff. After I stretched the cables it's been great, zero issues and nice snappy shifting :thumbup:

by Weenie


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