I have an old bike with a front brake "Weinmann Symmetric". It was not working very good as it stood in a garage for 20 years.
I bought a new cable and new brake pads.
I tried to pull as much as possible from the cable, while bringing the brake pads to the rim and the tightening the cable. But when I pull the brake lever it does not pool the brake nor return to its position.
This is the brake:
The cable installed, the flash made it a little bit red:
When I activate the brake it stays like that without pulling the brake:
The cable attachment to the brake:
Update: I tried to put a new cable housing with the same size as the old one and a new cable housing around 3-4inch longer. I still get the same result, the cable does not move at the end. I made a little video where I don't even have the cable attached to the brake because I don't want to destroy the cable with so many tries, but it is possible to see that the cable does not move at the end. I don't know if its possible to insert videos here so I'll just put a link https://i.stack.imgur.com/NRyKU.jpg