anga

Are there any standards, constraints, incompatibilities for attaching brake levers to hoods?

trailangel

Brake levers cannot be attached to hoods.

Iride01 

There are some brake clamps on brake levers that don't work with some bar diameters. I think.

But most of us are sort of WTF? And thinking "watcha talking about Willis"!

anga

Remember, this is for drop bars.
Does this mean that hood + brake lever come as a package?

SoSmellyAir

There is some ambiguity here because "hood" can refer to two things. If by "hood" you mean the entire STI structure with the underlying shift and brake mechanisms (Shimano Dura-Ace ST-R9100 11-Speed STI Shifters | Competitive Cyclist) rather than just the cover (Shimano STI Lever Hoods | Competitive Cyclist), then yes, a "hood" is generally sold with a lever as an integrated unit.

Ironfish653

You need to give a few more details about what you’re trying to do.
On a modern (1990s or newer) bike, drop-bar brake levers, whether brake-only, or an integrated brake/shifter’STI’ unit, have a rubber cover/grip over the base/mounting hardware. This rubber cover is the Hood; it comes as a part of the lever assembly, and is usually specific to a particular make or model lever.

Being that it’s a rubber grip surface, the hoods are subject to wear and damage, so you can often buy replacement hoods to repair or refurbish lever assemblies without having to replace the entire mechanism.

anga

Thanks. I was incorrectly using "hood" to refer to the base of the unit, i.e., the part of the unit excluding the lever (brake or brake + shifter) and the hood.

Two questions, about brake levers without integrated shifter.

1. Is the lever permanently fixed to the base?
2. If the lever is removable, can it be attached to other bases? For example, 105 to Ultegra or Shimano to SRAM?

Crankycrank

#1. No
#2. No. Each brand/model usually has it's own design and not interchangeable with other bodies but there may be a few exceptions.

Iride01 

Your use of the word lever is questionable too. Or are you simply talking about the lever itself and not anything it's connected too?

Modern STI's that shift as well as brake are far more complex and much less cross compatible in their parts than the simple rubber coated brake levers used BITD.

adamrice 

The thing you're calling the "hood" is usually called the lever body. I've also seen it call the lever block, bracket, or casing. What most people call the "hood" is the rubber sheath over it. The part that pivots is the lever arm or blade (confusingly, the business end of a caliper brake also consists of two lever arms).

I would not be surprised if different lever arms from the same manufacturer and same era were interchangeable (eg 2021 Dura Ace and 105), but I wouldn't count on it. Also, modern brifters are very complicated—a Shimano brifter has over 100 parts—so I wouldn't attempt such a transplant casually.

SJX426 

Shimano brifters are considered non serviceable by most. The effort to fix then is to first flush them out to remove the dried lubricant then follow up with a lubricant.
Campagnolo Ergo (brifters) are serviceable and in some cases, like Chorus and Record, the many parts are the same. Lower level Campagnolo "brifters" tend to have different designs and may not have the same parts. Campagnolo has much less than 100 serviceable parts in an Ergo.

Well you probably don't care about the brifters but like others have stated, each company has its own design and may or may not have common parts between "models." This gets a bit more complicated when you realize that some companies supply to others with only a branding difference.

No standards
Nothing but constraints
Nearly total incompatibility

This is true for nearly every component on a bike except ball bearings within a size constraint. It is by design. Interfaces between parts are becoming less standard too, hubs to drop outs, stems to steerer, cranks to bottom brackets, even brake calipers to frames.

Schlafen

this cracked me up lolz

Ironfish653

1. Yes
2. No.

You really need to tell us what you're trying to do, so that we can give you some actual guidance, instead of continually asking open ended questions about the parts of a brake lever.
It sounds like you have a broken lever assembly that you're trying to repair?

Brake levers (and brifters) come as a single assembly, that includes the body/base, which is covered by the rubber hood, and that the lever itself sticks out of. This assembly is mounted on the handlebar by way of a metal band clamp, which is under the handlebar tape wrap. You will have to remove the bar tape, and roll the bottom of the rubber hood away from the bar itself to get to the clamp and the screw that secures it. You then remove the entire lever assembly from the handlebar.

There are many, many different makes and models of brake levers and brifters; some are more serviceable than others, but any integrated brake/shifter is difficult, at best. Even if you are possessing of the skill and time to attempt a rebuild, very few of the parts are readily available through the typical retail stream.
With very few exceptions, parts are not interchangeable between models, and never between brands.
If the lever assembly is significantly damaged, the typical course of action is to remove and replace the whole thing.

anga

I recently started using a dropbar bike that came with brake-only hoods; the shifter is attached to the handlebar, flatbar style.
Nothing is broken. No repairs. No upgrades.
I am trying to learn more about this new-to-me type of brake levers. Hence the open-ended questions.

Ironfish653

Ok. Well, now we're getting somewhere, but not anywhere close to where we thought you were going, based on the responses you got to your original post.

Drop bar (road bike) brake levers have mounted pretty much the same way for about the last 50 years or so. The diameter of drop bars has been standard for a long, long time You can mount new levers on an old bike, or old levers on a new bike, but you generally replace the whole assembly, not parts of it.
If you want to convert a bike that has the brake levers and shifters mounted separately, like yours, to have integrated 'STI' style brake/shifters, you will have to replace the whole assembly, you can't just add the shifter parts to brake levers you already have.

anga

No plans to move to STI.
Thank you for taking the time to explain.

SurferRosa

Why not post a pic instead of a game of 20 questions?

Miele Man

Just to clarify things here's an image of a Brake lever assembly.



Cheers

ShannonM

Brake levers are generally not rebuildable, because you can't get the small parts. Back in the 70's Campagnolo dealers could order every single piece of their brake levers, such that one could, if one were willing, assemble an entire lever set out of the small parts catalog. Nobody has done this since the Carter administration.

"Hoods," the rubbery, squishy things that wrap around the brake lever bodies and make a comfy place for you to put your hands, are easy to find for brake levers that are still in production, not hard to find for some out-of-production brake levers, and don't-even-bother-because-you-can't-find-them for other brake levers. (Ask anyone who's got 8-speed Dura-Ace STI levers with trashed hoods...)

Brake lever parts are rarely interchangeable between models, and almost never between brands. Without knowing what kind of levers you have, what's wrong with them, and what you want to fix, we can't help.

Fair warning: most of the time, the answer is going to be "you have buy new brake levers."

--Shannon