how to install ilinks with campag 11

ok so there is lots of bike building going on round here, there seems to be a bit of WWism and a lot of campag 11 getting used so… as the instructions for these cables are totally crap
here is a how too

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…

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

trim the liner so that you have a couple of cm hanging out of the end of the housing…

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 also have to file down the OD of the brake cable stops, they are about 0.5mm to wide, as the are made of lead this only takes a sec. 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

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…

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 ( thanks Dan @ shifter bikes for this tip )

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…

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

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…

KCNC DLC Derailleur Cable [Kc DLC Der Cable] : Fairwheel Bikes, Cycling Boutique

Thanks for the info SK. I had no idea about the 292mm rear mech housing; now I’m thinking I cut mine too short and should buy some new cables. So why would you recommend using ilink in particular over the standard campy setup? I’ve also heard good things about Yokozuna; any thoughts on that?

Shame on you Zak…a workshop thread and no pictures of the porno couch!

Hey bro… You’d only need to replace the rear section… If you’ve got std campy housing and haven’t cut he spare stuff to shit you might be able to rangle up a spare section… If not just go to the LBS and get a length of SRAM housing for the job in the right color

Would I recommend the I links over campag cables… No only if you want to save 70-80g in weight… You really can’t top the std campag cables they are totally fucken excellent and very hard to beat… I have managed with a little time and care to achieve a close parity with the ilinks and that is about all you can hope for with the alternative cable sets.

The Yokozuna stuff… If your running SRAM or Shimano then they appear to work real nice… I find the housing very stiff though ( for my liking )
What I don’t rate at all are the gore ride on Teflon cables… The Teflon flakes off very fast gumming up the housings and fucking the shifting.

If you have campag and Don’t need the light weight cable set then the factory cable cannot be beaten…

Sorry Rhys I was sitting on it :smiley:

70-80g does seem like a lot of weight to save just from cables. I’m reasonably new to the lightweight game and had no idea cables could save this weight. I only just found out recently about lightweight inner tubes (I’ve been riding 100g tubes and carrying a 100g spare all this time)! I’ll definitely consider it when the upgraditch needs a scratch next.

I originally cut my rear housing relatively short by comparing it to how a mate’s ride was set up. But I have found my Chorus 11 shifting to not be perfect. Keen to see if this sorts it out. But yeah, for now I’ll only need to swap out my rear mech section, and probably the cable itself as I don’t reckon it’s long enough to accommodate a longer housing.

Just get some housing and a new shifter Cable from the lbs, you can sort it out next time you cable your bike

The cable set was one of the last things I tried so it was a big cheap saving when most things I can do are very expensive and net only small weight savings.

I’ve got a set of Nokon cables on my MTB which are similar in design to the ilinks, but look a lot better I reckon. Not sure about the price/weight difference to the campy stuff, but they make shifting amazingly precise!

The nokons are pretty good.
These are lighter and don’t rattle like the nokons.
Other wise they work the same.