Following my repaint I've started the rebuild. Went to replace the heater cables today as they've never moved since I've had the van, Thinking they wont take long to remove, and then feed in the new ones. I started by snipping the ends off by the heat exchangers, and thought I'd pull them through towards the front of the van under the cab.....what can go wrong? I was wrong, a good tug initially got them both moving, but then both cables seem to snag on something within the conduits! Could not push them back a little to help free them, so was left doing the equivalent of worlds strongest man pulling a truck whilst sitting on the floor! It was rigging gloves on and I'm pulling and pulling metres upon metres of sprial wrapped outer sheathing that was slowly unravelling from the outside of the heater cable, eventually most/some of the outer sheathing pvc came through with lots of water from both conduits, but it left me shattered and *******ed off that a simple job turned into a knightmare! Fitting the new cables can wait another day!
For the next guy - Struggled to get one cable out of my mates van this morning. After an hour and no Geoff Capes, we tied the cable to his car and pulled it out, worked a treat. Cable sheath had rusted to the inside of the tube.
Awful job. Never done an easy one yet, probably just my luck but I can see why people just cable tie the HX’s!
I have been known to attach the front end of the cable to something solid, and reverse away from it ..
This ^^^^ Matey used a lamp post ! I went down the cable tie route... Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
In the past I've pulled out the 100m spring but it left the outer plastic in there preventing new cables going in - that's annoying. Cable tied the new ones to the outside of the conduit which worked.
Same here ref cable tied new. I tried the pulling out old rusted in cable by reversing the bus and the old cable broke before it would budge...why is rust soooo strong when you don't want it to be...
I feel your pain! This is one of the VERY few jobs I did on ours ... (and the only one finished off at TE!) Had been warned it was a pig so gave them several feeds of Plusgas over a few nights,(mainly between sheath and tube) and a v strong fine cord tied onto both ends so I could let an end disappear but still do alternate pulls ... some with the cable end looped into a mole grip. The PITA factor was the round of getting on the ground at one end, pulling, getting up, going to the other end, getting back down, pulling, etc etc. My poor old joints!
3 meters of washer wiper hose, attached to one end of the cable channel, a funnel and about 2 pints of WD40… and patience helps.
…9 years on…I’m still pulling them out, it’s never ending! ..Got them all out and the new heater cables in, then decided to go Subaru..(it’s still work in progress! ) so was a pointless task, but sure I sold the cables to someone here, as they were as new and removed easily!
