In this video, we'll walk through housing and cable installation for upright bar brake levers.
Installing Brake Housing and Cable is part of our video series: The Park Tool Guide to Rim Brakes.
Watch this video to see how we've organized the content in this series. Otherwise, let's begin.
Hello, Calvin Jones here, with Park Tool Company. First, let's go over the tools and supplies needed.
Cable cutter for cutting the cables and also woven and braided housing
Sidepull cutters for cutting the wound housing
A seal pick for opening up the inner liner
And a bottle of lubricant for inside the housing.
Let's begin by discussing what the role of housing is.
The brake lever will be connected to our caliper with the housing that allows the cable to pass through it,
going around the frame, going down the fork,
and that allows us to squeeze the lever and pull our caliper - either rim caliper or disc caliper -
tight against the rotor or rim.
There are certain housings that are appropriate for a brake system as well as certain cables.
Let's first look at some that are inappropriate.
This is a smaller shift wire - it's about 1.1 millimeters in diameter -
passing through some smaller housing that is shift housing.
The shift housing, we've cut away a section of the outer protective plastic sheath to show inside.
That's not a cable, that's the support wires that run in line with the load.
This provides a very good rigid shifting system.
In braking, it is very inappropriate because we have a lateral force, much more force going on
in our braking that could blow right through these wires.
This is a traditional brake housing called a wound housing. This is a single spiral wrap.
We've cut away the plastic sheet on this one to show inside.
Very strong in the direction of the force of braking
Fairly inexpensive, does a good job of braking,
You can sometimes actually see through the plastic a very subtle line pattern showing the wrapping.
This is another option that is a bit more expensive - this is a woven or braided housing system.
Inside, we have a similar system to the compressionless housing,
but this weave - this is a Kevlar weave on the outside - it gives us a lot of strength.
So this black housing here, we've cut off the plastic to see inside.
The lower piece here is a little bit clearer - you can see through there and see the the braid or the weaving.
So, a more expensive system but does provide a good rigid high-performance brake housing.
On this bike, the left lever is going to route down to the front brake.
Here, this is a common linear pull.
So our housing will be installed into the barrel adjuster and come down to the housing stop at the brake,
which may be at another barrel adjuster, or in this case, at the noodle.
So we would install our noodle at the linkage
and then hold our housing adjacent to the stop on the noodle.
If we're too long - we'll hold in the middle at the cut point, and we can see here - this is too long.
The housing is rising up and above the brake lever adjusting barrel before it comes down,
so definitely too long.
Additionally, we can notice that the stem is already as high as it can go.
So this rider cannot raise their stem any more - there's no reason to have this excess housing on the front.
Especially on a mechanical disc brake, excess housing can reduce performance.
There's going to be more cable drag here,
and also with more housing we're going to have more flex in the system, reducing performance.
So here, we want to watch the loops as they enter the barrel adjuster.
We'll come down to the caliper and start to shorten - shorten -
and keep an eye on the barrel adjuster at the top.
Once it starts straightening up in a nice straight line, we will stop.
If we can get away with shorter and still be straight, we will want to do that.
So right about in here is where we want to be
and that will be our cut point right about here.
If we bring it down, down, down too far, we now have an example of too short.
We can see at the brake lever - it's bending immediately as it leaves the adjusting barrel,
so this would be too short. So we add some more, and we add some more,
and we can see the end cap's starting to come up and sit square in the barrel adjuster.
So about halfway in the noodle stop - that's where we would cut.
That's a decent housing length for this brake.
Regardless of the type of brake you have, the concept is the same - straight housing into the barrel adjuster.
To cut the wound housing, remember it's a single piece of wire.
So we're going to use a diagonal cutters
and we're going to reach to the end of the jaws there where there's the most leverage.
A little bit of flex opens up the coils and helps give us a cleaner cut.
Sometimes there will be a sharp burr. You can use these to come in and trim.
Be careful not to let a piece of metal fly off.
If there's still a little closed end or a plastic liner, we can take a seal pick and open that up.
So that is ready for some oil.
It is possible to also use a cable cutter,
but these are really intended for multi-wire, not the single wire cuts.
The braided or woven housing does use the cable cutter.
The construction here is of multiple wires inside,
so here we find where we want to cut, hold the housing square to the tool, squeeze and it cuts.
Here we see that we've ovalized it a little bit.
We can use these little crimpers on the tool to open that up
and again repeat with the seal pick, if necessary, to open up the inner liner.
Sometimes we will find that there's a jagged end, a burr. Trimming it simply can't get it out.
It can sometimes be filed out by hand, or we can use the axle vise.
Use the 5mm, have the housing barely stick up, gently snug that down
then we can come across with our file trim up that burr
and make a nice level smooth flat end out of our wound housing.
This would not be done with the braided housing.
After the wound wire is filed flat and smooth, it may pinch off the liner.
Use a seal pick to open it up and it's ready to go.
Whenever an end cap can be used, it should be used.
This end cap slides on our housing provides a very nice end to go into our brake
You'll see on some brakes it fits right in.
This is a good model here that would use an end cap.
If we didn't use an end cap here, it's a sloppier fit.
However, some models and some brands this end cap simply does not go in.
They've made the barrel adjuster smaller in diameter. Effectively, it is its own end cap
so this model would not use an extra end cap.
Brake cables are commonly sold with two ends.
A mushroom or teardrop end is for the drop bar style lever.
The round or disc end is for the upright handlebar brake lever.
So here we will remove the mushroom end.
Locate a groove in the brake lever and then notice the lockring and barrel adjuster will also have grooves.
Align this groove or opening so that 1, 2, 3 are all aligned.
Next, pull the lever back and engage the cable end in the linkage that carries the cable.
Lay this into the opening or groove all the way out,
give that a half a turn to hold it in place,
and we are now ready to install the housing.
Some brake levers may have the opening behind the lever body.
A little bit of lubrication inside the housing can help prevent water
from settling in there and causing corrosion.
Next, we feed the cable end through the housing
and we engage the end cap into the barrel adjuster.
The cable will now pass through the barrel adjuster.
In this case, it's a linear pull brake, so the noodle contains a housing stop rather than a barrel adjuster,
and this will be engaged in the linkage.
And from here, we are adjusting the brakes.
The next section in our rim brake series is on brake caliper mounting and adjustment.
There are many different types of brake calipers and we've got videos on most of them.
Select the one that's appropriate for you.
If you're not sure what you've got, watch this video to find out.
If you're working with disc brakes, we have other content with links in the video description below.
Thanks for watching, and be sure to subscribe for more from Park Tool.