[HondaPete89]

Recently bought this bike to go with my 500t
How do I get the brake cable off of the front drum brake? Was expecting a slotted thread attachment but the threaded portion seems solid and is locked on either end by a nut. Forgot to take a photo, sorry. Help?

 

[HondaPete89]

Adding a photo. Is there some dumb trick or am I just totally oblivious. First bike with a front drum.

 

[ancientdad]

What I've always done is back off the adjusters on both ends, at the lever up top and at the adjuster on the bottom of the cable, then you can do it one of two ways: either 1) line up the slot in the cable adjuster at the lever so the cable can come out, then grab the outer cable near the lever and hold it tightly, then pull the front brake lever hard, then pull back on the outer cable when you let off the lever (instead of letting the inner cable go back inside) and the outer cable will come out of the adjuster far enough that you can slide the inner cable out of the adjuster slot that you lined up previously... or 2) have someone else pull the front brake lever hard while you hold the arm on the brake backing plate (after removing the cotter pin that is intended to retain the cable) and when they release the brake lever, hold the arm still and slip the cable out of the arm at the bottom

 

[HondaPete89]

I'll try that when I'm back at the bike. The cable is not connected to the brake lever currently. There is no slot in the threaded portion that feeds through the body of the drum itself that would allow the cable to be slipped out sideways. The end of the cable at the drum is free, I just can't get the remaining parts off of the drum body. Pain in the ass

 

[ancientdad]

I think you're thinking of a different design than this actually is. Honda designed the backing plate with a slot where the threaded portion goes through, and if you unscrew the nut all the way from the end of the threaded portion, the threaded portion then slips back until the inner cable itself will slip through the slot (white arrow)

 

[HondaPete89]

The cap at the rear end of the white arrow keeps the nut from backing all the way off. Same on the other side. Essentially neither nut can back all the way off, keeping the shaft locked in it's guide. Thank you for the illustration, am I being completely dense about this? Unfortunately I'm not near the bike right now and unable to investigate.

 

[ancientdad]

The cap at the rear end of the white arrow keeps the nut from backing all the way off.

Now I understand what you're seeing - except for that "cap" is actually the baked rubber end of the gray shield over the inner cable, and can be forced or cut off - it's not a cap to prevent cable removal. The nut is intended to come off to remove the cable.

 

[HondaPete89]

Excellent, will get that sucker off. Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

 

[fxray]

That CL450 is really a nice, complete bike. I'm curious -- did you buy it from Georgia? It looks very familiar.

 

[ancientdad]

That CL450 is really a nice, complete bike. I'm curious -- did you buy it from Georgia? It looks very familiar.

It is - I got so caught up in explanations that I failed to mention it. It's the exact same bike I had in high school except mine was candy orange