Hello everyone, I hope this is not the wrong place to ask. I’ve just changed my bike’s brakes (caliper type mechanism) because one of the two cable jackets did this (the black part correctly stops at the brake lever but the central part is smaller and is able to enter the brake lever). After changing to a new one at the front, I tensioned the back one and it broke the same way after a few tests. Am I doing everything wrong? (The bike is really old and rusty but seems to me I can only upload 1 pic per post)

Edit: link to some more photos

https://postimg.cc/gallery/pzDvqxK

  • TDSOJohnOP
    2·
    3 days ago

    what do you mean by “improper hole of the break lever”? Should it be small enough to pass just the metal cable and stop the thing between the metal cable and the plastic jacket?

    • Eat_Your_Paisley
      2·
      2 days ago

      Yea, the cable casing should stop at the lever body and it should only feed cable to the lever itself.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      1·
      2 days ago

      Yes, exactly. And if it’s larger than that, you have to rely on the metal of the ferrule to hold the pressure which it’s typically not made to do. If the ferrule can’t hold it, no amount lf tension adjustment would fix it because tension just regulates the position at which the lever is when the brake pads have fully engaged the rim. The force you apply once engaged is roughly the same (unless the brake bottoms out but that’s not an effective braking adjustment). If I were you and spending the money on new brake levers wasn’t a problem I’d do that instead of trying to workaround it with a strong ferrule. You could replace just the front. The rear brake doesn’t do much anyway.

      • TDSOJohnOP
        1·
        2 days ago

        Thanks, very clear, that explains everything! I will buy new levers and I’ll bring the piece with me to check the hole size