OK, ancient thread, but this might be useful to someone, someday.
The ferrules / cable end caps I had for brake and shift cables fit the housing just fine, but the cable stops on this old Motobecane were not cooperating. While the housing would fit into the cable stop, the ferrule would not. FIX: cut the ferrule down and slide it in place, then run the cable, then shove the housing in place. This "sandwiched" the ferrule in place so it could do what it's supposed to do, to stop the housing from compressing. There's nothing saying the ferrule has to be a certain length; it just needs to go over the end of the housing and up against the cable stop.
Here's the bare frame, hopefully you can see how the frame's cable stops are designed, which made it so cutting the ferrules down was the only way they were going to fit.
