how to attach the front brake cable?

[cooperplace]

250 Monza: the front brake cable runs down onto the brake, goes through a cylindrical pivot thing that that sits in the brake actuating lever, and then I attach a screw-clamp thing that grips the cable. At this point my paranoia takes over. How tight should I make that clamp? Not tight enough and the cable pulls out when I apply the brake. But can I over-tighten it, so that the clamp cuts into the cable? Maybe I'm paranoid, but people die because of insufficient paranoia. I'd like to know of an inherently safe way to attach the front brake cable.
Thanks.

[DewCatTea-Bob]

[quote= cooperplace ...
" I attach a screw-clamp thing that grips the cable.
How tight should I make that clamp?
can I over-tighten it, so that the clamp cuts into the cable? "

____ The little bolt of the front-brake inner-cable clamp, can indeed be overtightened,, however it's hex-head will twist-off before the tip-end of the bolt can do any significant damage to the cable !
If you wish to make-sure that the bolt won't scratch into any of the inner-cable's strands, then you could file-down & round-off the edges of the tip-end of the bolt.
__ Over-tightening of that clamp-bolt is a fairly common problem,, and once it's hex-head has been twisted-off, the clamp is then rather permanently attached to the inner-cable, and-so you're then stuck with it that way.
Fortunately the clamp is more than sufficiently tightened well before it's threaded-bolt has reached it's max.torque-limit.
So as to be sure of not reaching the point of twisting-off the hex-head,, you can take-your-time & do some test-trials by repeatingly further tightening the bolt until the clamp no-longer slips-away from it's setting, (while fully applying the brake),, and THEN (once that sufficient-point has been reached), tighten the bolt still another half-turn further-yet, (and that should do the job).
____ Don't forget to FIRST make-sure that the brake-activator lever-arm (which the clamp sets into), has been properly located onto it's splined-shaft so that the lever is at a 'right-angle' WHEN the brake is fully applied ! _ Otherwise, operation of the brake will be less than optimum.
__ I've included a picture which shows the proper orientation for the activator-arm WHEN the brake is near maximum engagement.
(When rested in the normal unactivated state,, then the resulted angle of the arm, is unimportant.)


Hopeful-Cheers,
-Bob

[cooperplace]

Thank you very much for that excellent, high-quality information. Much appreciated.

Peter.