Originally Posted by backmd

In the late 1970s I worked on thousands of these center pull calipers. I cannot give you measurements but this is what I noticed, the diacompe brake has 3 spring coils vs weinmann brake which has 2 coils. After you lubricate the entire brake during a go over job (brakes and gears) the weinmann brake feels different. Squeezing the brake lever, the brake contacts the rim and no longer moves. With the dia compe the brake contacts the rim and the brake lever moves another cm or so. So we used to call them spongy. Every thing else is identical. I do not know whether the sponginess was from the 3 spring coils or the metal alloy itself. It was probably the metal alloy bending slightly on compression of the brake lever.