BCRider

Older housings such as from that era generally didn't have any plastic inner liner from the examples of old bikes that I've seen. As a result the cables run directly on the spiral wound metal compression liner. So yeah, the housings can last a LONG time. But I always found that even new cables didn't feel quite right in such housings. There's just more friction and catches in non lined housings for my tastes. So I tend to switch them over to new stuff with plastic liners and use smooth drawn cable. I just find that the resulting feel is far smoother and snappy.

Mind you metal to metal housings are prime candidates for greasing the cables. I have to admit that I never tried that option.