Originally Posted by
FBinNY
You absolutely, positively need a ferrule, or flat stop washer on the lever body when using compressionless brake housing with ergo levers. The body is plastic, and the ends of the strands will nibble at it, and the hole is big enough for the housing to pinch in and extrude through.
I'm not saying you'll lose the brakes tomorrow or on the first emergency stop, but you will never get rock solid performance, and some time down the road will find the pockets in the lever body worn through (not a cheap repair).
On levers, where the cable/leverbody combination precludes a ferrule, I use flat stainless washers as dead stops at the bottom of the lever. For normal brake cable, I use one, but for compressionless I use two (though you have to put me into a half nelson before I'll use long spiral brake housing).
Wow, OK, thank you for the important warning. I was just following two bits of advice: 1) Campy says don't use ferrules on ergo levers, and 2) I was informed I should use compressionless housing for disc brakes. But it's clear from what you say here that those pieces of advice conflict.
I see two options:
A) install regular campy brake housing, with no ferrules, from the levers to just past the bars, and then connect that housing to the compressionless housing.
B) add a ferrule (or a washer) at the levers to the jagwire compressionless housing.
May I ask your advice on which of those you'd choose?
Can't thank you enough for the help.