Kestrel Airfoil Pro Un-Assing.

Here's the latest "project" that I completed.  It's not my first go-around with this particular bike, in fact, I might have posted something about how much I dislike the design of the internal cable routing for the rear derailleur cable a while back. My problem with the design isn't with the difficulty fishing the cable thru the frame, that's quite easy and it takes but a minute or two tops.  My beef is with the internal cable guide that's located aft of the bottom bracket and looks like :

  To make a long story short, I think that this adds a lot of friction to the system even with adding a nylon sleeve to the guide to allow for smoother cable travel.

Anyway, this time with this frame was extra special because both of the bolts that attach the plate for the guide to the frame were completely frozen and the 3mm hex rounded out with very little effort.  First attempt at slotting the bolt heads and using a flathead screwdriver failed.  Next course of action was to remove the bolt heads.  Here's the result:

 

After careful inspection, I found that Kestrel used nutsert.  I then went town carefully removing both with one of my favorite tools.  Here's the result:

I think that this main culprit that caused this was water sitting inside the frame.  This bike isn't babied but it also isn't abused.  Next, I installed new Nutserts:

To hopefully avoid this from happening again, I added a drain hole to the cover plate.  I also used 4mm hex bolts and plenty of anti-seize.  Here's the result:

It's better than new actually.  I'm still not thrilled with the design, but until I come up with something better, this is going to have to do.  Thanks for checking in.  -John

Comments

[RogueMechanic]

Hello!
I used a high speed rotary tool (Dremel) and a some small cutting burrs. Need to have a steady hand and take your time. I hope that this info helps! Thanks for writing!
-John

[Mechanic Training]

What tool did you use the remove the nutserts?

[Braeden T]

I'm a first time poster, but have been reading much of your blog lately. Thanks for all the info, keep it up!

[fattymcbastard]

nice work... The little access panel is mandatory when dealing with that little noodle! That is a nice little friction point though. It would function much more smoothly with a pully wheel instead of that noodle if there was room.