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[Closed] Drilling a steel hardtail for a Reverb Stealth

kayak23 · 2016-08-12T14:52:11Z

Wa gwan. I decided to get my drill out today and stick a hole in my perfectly good and relatively new Production Privee Oka frame so that I could fit a new 150mm Reverb Stealth. I thought I'd take a few pics along the way in case anyone else wanted to see it done. It's dead easy really, but will most likely invalidate your warranty. Meh... :-) [b]Ingredients[/b] Bicycle Reverb Stealth or other dropper with internal cabling Drill Centre punch Selection of metal drill bits up to the one required for your rubber grommet (8mm in my case) A rubber wiring Grommet such as this from [urlfor £1.70[/url] Small round file Cable cutters The bike is this one here, a Production Privee Oka hardtail, but this will work on any bicycle. I already have a Reverb fitted. It's about 3 years old with an external actuation attachment but it's 125mm drop and I've been finding with this new frame that the seat gets me goolies on the steeps, hence the longer drop needed. [imgFirst thing I did was offer up the new post just to get an idea where things would sit. This new post is considerably longer than the old one and I had to make sure that all the gubbins would fit in my seat tube. Luckily, your average steel hardtail tends to have quite a nice, long and straight seat tube and I had more than 25mm sticking out before the collar on the old one and so it was all fine. [imgOffering up the new post [imgI then observed the lower end and where I would likely exit the seat tube. I also had to bear in mind where I could physically get a drill in. Drilling into the tube slightly off centre isn't a bad thing and so that's where it would be. High enough away from the bottom bracket area to get a nice bend, no kinks, roughly in line with the 'U' in 'Production'. [imgSummat like this aroundabouts. [imgI put a bit of insulation tape on the area to help stop the drill slide about. I then offered up my drill to get the spot and gave it a nice tap with a centre punch, also to help stop the drillbit slide about. I then started drilling my nice new frame 8O I used a 2mm bit to start with and worked my way up, right up to an 8mm, which may seem quite big but the hose needs room to exit the grommet at a shallow angle. Other people doing this have made a slot instead. Either way works. [img[img[imgThen you want to clean up the hole with a small round file. You don't want any burrs on the inside or outside of the hole. [imgNext, wind the Reverb speed control all the way out (slowest setting), grasp the hose and being very careful not to depress the button, wind the actuator button anti-clockwise, unscrewing the threaded barb from the hose. [imgNow feed the hose down into the seat tube and find the hole. I found this quite easy and helped the hose through the hole with the end of my file. Another method is to thread a bit of brake outer through and then use the double-ended threaded barb that you got with the post to then pull your hose through. [imgNow stick your grommet onto your hose and fit it to the seat tube hole. It can be quite hard to fit but you can use a blunt poky thing to push the internal side of the grommet past the tube-wall until it fits. [imgGrommet in place [imgGetting the hose into position on the frame. It looks a bit 'pulled' here so you just need to tweak it about until you have a nice loop of hose at a nice angle to the grommet. [imgThen all you have to do is offer the hose up to the bar where your button is going, making sure you leave plenty of room for [s]bar spins[/s] crashes where the bars may twist, cut the hose with a good hose cutter or quality cable cutters I found worked fine. Screw the actuator button back on, fit it to your bar, wind the speed adjust in to where you want it and then go off and fiddle about getting your optimum seat height. [imgCheers. :-)

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vincienup

Posts: 0

Free Member

Whoops, no the vitus guide is the oval cable exit job. The routing guides are BBB...

Posted : 22/06/2017 5:03 pm

ajt123

Posts: 802

Free Member

The How To guide very helpful. Mad props to Kayak23.

Alex

Posted : 01/08/2018 9:51 pm

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