Modern Vespa

Hi,

A coupple of days into owning my PK125XL the rear started making a squeal under light breaking along with pulsing. Is there any chance that it is just the pads or will the entire drum need to be replaced? There is a slight oil leak from somewhere i havent found, could that be the cause of this somehow?

What other parts than just the drum and shoes would i need or are wear items that should be changed at the same time?

Clean them with brake cleaner first. Also check your rear hub seal for the leak. When you take the wheel and drum off the seal is set around the axle. That is a typical leak spot back there.

Could be brake shoes (dirty, loose, worn) or the drum (dirty, worn, loose or damaged and not circular) or the brake mechanism (loose or worn).

I'd look into replacing the brake plate gasket and seal. But I'd have the rear wheel off first.

Another bigger issue that could arise is that the drive shaft could be damaged or bent.

Something to note when having a look. Replacing that will be a case of opening the crankcase.

Alright, ill remove the rear wheel, clean everything with brake clean and see if there are any obvious leaks. If not, ill slap it back together and see if it is better and if not ill order parts. Hopefully i can do that today as i was planning on ordering some other stuff from SIP Scootershop, would be nice to get rid of all the problems in one weekend

Not gonna happen. Lol

Problems usually stop when you've addressed them all yourself or know of the history of the rebuild.

My current bike has been about an 18 month journey, and I'm still looking at things.

Try to mount brake shoes vice versa.
It worked for me few times.

18 months!

I'm well past 18 YEARS

Yeah especially at this rate, never got to removing the rear tire yesterday as the low beam went out because the contact was charred so I focused on cleaning that up. Didn't even get to removing the spare tire as the battery is zip tied and I didn't have anything to replace them with if I cut them

Maybe I'll get too it today any suggestions on where to place my wooden blocks to get the rear off the ground? I tried a few places but the suspension has enough droop to keep the rear planted

Like put the fronts on the rear? Or are the two shoes in the drum identical?

The shoes are interchangeable and can be mounted either top or bottom (leading or trailing) on the backing plate.

Yes. As Moto64 said. You also can try to change shoes from back to front and vice versa.

Is that a motovespa 125XL you've got? Squeaking all part of the character, mine was covered in spanish sand, inside the frame tunnel, glove box. Changed the shoes as mine squeaked awful, all good.

It's a PK125XL elestart, Swiss sold and imported here by a previous owner

As for the topic at hand here i havent gotten any time to check anything out but i have ordered new shoes for the front and rear, a new oil seal and new retaining hardware along with some other goodies. As my workshop and my home are not especially close, poor weather and deadlines have prevented any progress

I also had to replace the front shock with an RMS one, it looks and behaves like the original as didnt like the idea of having one of these fangled spring exposed gas adjustable wrist breakers; far too hard and if you hit a dink in road its quite a painful experience as the shock absorber doesnt really dampen anything. The Piaggio one that was on mine had probably not been changed in 35 years and was dangerous, was as spongy as hell and really dipped on braking; front PK XL brakes are pretty fierce with new shoes. Your scoot will be the same age, maybe a year older or younger than mine which is 1987

The centre hub nut should be tight. It should be not so easy to undo. When it goes back together it should be tight again, similar to a car wheel nut. Always a new split pin. If it comes loose the splines will chew up. If the hub comes off, you'll get chewed up.

55-65 ft lbs of torque fyi

I think that's the official torque for the older style.
Newer style should be more like 100 ft lbs.

100ftlbs is a lot…

Here's all the torques I follow from scooter centre

https://en.blog.scooter-center.com/tightening-torques-torques-vespa-lambretta/

Yeah. But still only half the the approx yeild torque

As I suspected the oil seal was damaged and seeping oil into the drum! Pads were completely glazed and baby smooth so cleaned everything, put new greese on the stuff that needs it, replaced the seal and replaced the plate gasket which is where the oil drip I've been having seemed to be from and yeah! Seems like I got it first try!

Rear brake now works more like I'd expect, now it just needs to wear in some and it should be all good!