OK, how dense can I be? 7401 brake levers

[Gothard]

There is no stop for the cable casing!
What is the casing supposed to stop against in the lever?? Am I missing a part?

Also, where can I get new rubber hoods for these?

[dirtdigger88]

the hoods show up on ebay all the time- do a search- also look in some of the "stores" on ebay- you can usually find them there-

I have no stops in mine (I assume you are talking about a metal end piece)

I just have a clean cut cable pushed in - the cabel rests inside the body of the lever

jason

[Grant McLean]

There is a little housing cable end cap that came with the levers,
it's about a 6mm little bullet in diameter. Not easy to find now.

Also, don't forget that 7401 levers have no return spring.
Depending on what caliper you're using them with, they will feel
awfully mushy if they aren't matched with a very strong spring caliper.

The 7402 levers were much more widely used. They're SLR (return spring)
and take normal housing without an end cap.

-g

[dirtdigger88]

my bad- I was thinking 7402..... sorry

are you sure you have 7401s- I see that you have 7403 brakes-

if you do infact have the 7401s- like Grant said you may not like the feel

aero or non aero- which is it

Jason

[Grant McLean]

The 7401 lever was the replacement for the original 7400 lever,
which had the cable come out the top. The 7401 lever was the first
new dura ace lever with the brake housing under the tape.
Interestingly, dura ace AX had the aero cable routing in 1983, but shimano
abandoned this feature, and went back to standard cable routing
in 1986 when "new" dura ace was introduced. Go figure.

Dura ace ax was such a failure, shimano went back to the drawing board,
and although 7400 was revolutionary with it's indexing feature, it was
completely conventional in every other way: freewheel, 6 speed, non aero
brake levers, single pivot side pull brakes, low flange std hubs....

The 7401 was designed to work with the 7400 caliper. These were
before SLR (springs in the lever, weaker spring in the brake arch)
So the caliper had a strong spring to overcome the friction in the cable.

There was no 7401 brake, the next year, shimano redesigned the lever
and the caliper, and called them 7402. By balancing the spring tension
between the lever and the brake, they had a nice snappy, but easy feel.
These were widely sold. this is when shimano was really on fire, and sold
tons of this stuff, I think the 7402 lever was in production for at least 10
years.

-g

[Gothard]

Thank you, the puzzle is assembling.
They are 7401 levers and 7403 brakes.
The adapters I can make, no big deal.
The rubber hoods I'll have to find.

[Polyglot]

Thank you, the puzzle is assembling.
They are 7401 levers and 7403 brakes.
The adapters I can make, no big deal.
The rubber hoods I'll have to find.


Also be aware that there is a distinct right and left lever. I too had the same problem with missing ferrule and I was able to fashion one out of a Diacompe cable ferrule using a file (it took less than 5 minutes to do)

[Grant McLean]

Thank you, the puzzle is assembling.
They are 7401 levers and 7403 brakes.
The adapters I can make, no big deal.
The rubber hoods I'll have to find.

This combo doesn't work well, don't waste your time.

The 7403 has a soft return spring, really requires an SLR lever.
Save yourself the hassle of cable adapters, and just buy a set
of new BL-R600 levers.


http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13673


-g

[Gothard]

Grant, gotcha. They have to be DA though. I'll look for rubber hoods, then.