I needed to change the cable and housing of a rear derailleur lately, and what I usually do to help with the initial cable slack is:
- Install the housing end caps on the newly cut housing and strike them a few times on the bench top to seat them.
- Route the cable and housing on the bike, put the chain to smallest cog, shift to highest gear and pinch the cable in the rear derailleur while pulling the cable by hand to remove some slack.
- Shift gears a couple times to seat the end caps further.
- Detach the cable, remove slack again by hand and pinch again.
- Proceed with gears adjustment.
The thing is this time, after adjusting the gears and finishing the other maintenance tasks on the bike, when I tried shifting gears again, there was still slack. I needed to detach the cable and remove slack again twice.
For this job, regular 4mm Jagwire shift cable with plastic end caps were used. There were three housing sections (so six end caps).
I would like to know if there are good ways to help remove the initial cable slack and make sure it is all gone before calling the maintenance done. I know we can sometimes pull on the exposed cable to help seat the end caps but I already broke a grip shift doing so and I am a bit hesitant now with this technique.