Trek 420 Refurb: Assembly III (Cables and Chain, close but cigar withheld)

Yesterday I got the bars cleaned up, a combo of Goof off and a toothbrush followed by steel wool got the bars smooth and took care of the sticky residue, and I got the new cane creek hoods on the levers.  Its starting to look like a bike again.

Today was all about getting the bike cabled and chained.  I used Sheldon Browns method of wrapping the chain around the big big combo front and back without going through the RD and making sure you have a full link and half overlap.  I had excess so I used the chain tool to knock out a pin and reduce the length, measure twice or three times and use the pin tool once, too long can be sloppy but too short is unusable.

The front brake went fine but the rear fought me, the pinch bolt that the cable threads through didn't want to back out far enough for me to thread the cable through the hole.

I usually avoid using the hammer but in this case it was a good tool to persuade the bolt to come out of its hole.  I removed the brake to make it easier and cut down the chance of a tragic accident.

Once I had the %#($~! bolt out I used a file and some steel wool to smooth it out so it wouldn't get stuck again and then gave it a dab of grease.  Problem solved, brakes done.

One thing that had me a bit worried was running the rear derailleur cable which goes through the drive side chain stay, however the guide tube they inserted at the factory was still there and the cable went through first try, easy peasy.

A trick I learned is that if the cables on the bike look like they are correct then save them to use as templates for the new cables as I did the the RD cable.  I had some yellow left over from the Allez and thought it would add some pop.

Now we get to why there is to be no cigar today, sad trombone, in the granny gear the chain grinds due to the RD not having a long enough cage to handle the 32t cog in back.  That may explain the tiny cogset the bike had on it and it means I need either a smaller 7 speed cassette or a longer cage RD.  Tomorrow I will go to bike works and see what I can find for vintage RD and hope for a quick swap and painless fix.  We will see.

EDIT I checked Velobase and sure enough it says plain as day that the max cog size for the Shimano Z-505GS is 28T.  I really should have done my research before getting a new cassette, 28T large cog would be fine and I think even a 30T could have worked but not the 32t I ordered.  Sigh, live and relearn.  I decided to keep the original RD and ordered an 12-28t cassette that in theory will be here Sunday and should be an easier swap than the RD.

Since I could use 20 of 21 gears I decided to do a quick lap around the block in the waning light just to see how she rode and if any other issues would present themselves. None did,  so I need to find a different RD, swap it, On Sunday I will swap to a 12-28T  cassette, do a thorough shake down and then I can wrap the bars and list this 420 while its still September.

Ride, two steps forward, one step back, smile, repeat.