JohnDThompson 

True, but as more and more sprockets were piled onto the rear cluster, and longer housing runs used to mount shifters on handlebars became more common, indexed shifting performance became increasingly sensitive to housing compression, and compressionless housing was introduced to maintain decent shifting performance.

smd4

Absolutely.

70sSanO

So about 15 years ago or so I bought some Kelly Take-offs with the idea that I would use them on my wife's bike. I opted for STI's. Tried them on another bike and hated them and tossed them in a bin.

However, I ended up putting the Take-offs on my road bike until I could find 8 speed non-Claris STI's (came close to using Tiagra 4700's, but that's another story). Everything shifted well and I am acclimating to them. It helps that the DT left shifter is spring loaded Ultegra, and the right is indexed.

I started having shifting problems and it turned out that the stupid noodle setup wouldn't accept a ferrule for the shift cable but the strands were pulling through; which I should have seen coming. I decided to use some Jagwire 5mm brake housing despite some misgivings. It is about 16" to the DT boss cable stop. So far I have not had any problems with the indexing and it is nice to keep my hands on the bars despite the required gyrations.

I think these are the original 4mm, but they are now 5mm.

John

Andrew R Stewart 

There are a lot of mechanical designs that worked well when they came out, only to see improvements later. Andy (not saying more about this view of recent past)

Aardwolf

Had the same issue 2.5 years back.
Just got a 'new' 1982 Holdsworth Avanti so of course I checked it over and replaced the cables with fancy new Shimano ones.
Shifter cable kept pulling through the chain stay cable stop.

After some research I realised Shimano introduced 4mm shifter cables around 1984.
So of course my cable stops were for 5mm cables.

Replaced the cable outer with 5mm Shimano brake outer and everything was fine, and stayed that way - even works friction shifting 8 speed.

Kontact

There are narrow ferrules for 4mm housing that fit those holes in both cases.

soyabean

5mm brake coil wound housing gets the steel ferrules.

4mm compressionless get the plastic ones. They may exist steel ones, but the plastic ones work fine.

Ferrules ends are a MUST. There are naysayers here that claim they are not required, they can believe what they want as long as they don't touch my bikes.

Aubergine 

I can't agree. The wires in the compressionless housing shift over time, and they are sharp. They'll poke right through the plastic ferrules. Even the metal 4mm ferrules can be distorted by the wires. Whenever I tune a bike I'll check and trim the ends of the derailleur housings to get rid of the poke-y wires, and cap them with good metal ferrules.

Kontact

You're aware that Shimano brake levers and road calipers do not and cannot use ferrules?

smd4

A bit of a misleading blanket statement. Mine do. That's how I'm able to use compressionless housing.

rccardr 

Jagwire POPS and others that have a reduced insert circumference work fine.
But yes, many Shimano brake calipers were designed to work well without a ferrule.

Kimmo

Never come across this 'laminated' housing; the fourth kind that Suntour talks about, where the liner and outer sheath are somehow 'mechanically locked' with the housing wire... Suspect it wasn't really a thing.

One type of housing not mentioned here is the segmented stuff. Tried a few; I like Nokon Slimline and Jagwire Elite Link.

The segmented stuff seems spendy, until you realise it never dies; you can just replace the liners, and unlike any other housing, invisibly extend it.

KCT1986

The info from Suntour was from the late 80s when there were many problems with Accushift equipped bikes. One of the issues was probably from the continued use of brake housing instead of the specified housing.

What Suntour called 'laminated' is probably similar to the higher quality wound brake housing that we currently have, (think Jagwire CGX).

At the time of the document, brake housing was often made as described in the document as 'lined'. The liner was not fixed to the steel spiral winding and could be pulled out.

sweeks

Be sure to distinguish between Compressionless Brake Housing and the compressionless housing used for shifting. The latter may rupture under the higher forces used for braking; the consequences could be, as Albus Dumbledore might say, severe.

smd4

Good point.