Modern Vespa

My front disc brake scares me. It seems to only have two settings: barely braking or locked up. Is there a way I can adjust it? Would flushing the brake fluid help?

I find that I tend to not use it because of how touchy it is. I had to emergency brake the other day and locked up the wheels. I was able to keep the bike upright but would love to feel more confident with the front brake. I rode my friend's Stella and his brake is just fine.

Cheers for any help.

Easy fix - unscrew the lever from the cylinder. Clean and regrease, and put it back in. This should fix it. I have to do mine every 3-4 months, moreso if it rains.

First if its a stella drain & fill using new dot 4 every stella I have ever worked on or set up I have done that so over 200 of them and counting

But before doing that take the cali off and look at the break pads and clean the piss out of it with the pads off with break cleaner then spray be sure to pump it as open as you can get it then spray with silcone spray and wipe clean then spray again and wipe clean

Put every thing back together and then drain that old fluid best is to cover the scooter with news paper then take off the break lever and pull the piston that pumps the breaks and crack it at the bottom it all drains out

Sounds like you have air in your lines if its locked up

Thanks, that is all really helpful.

I'm just confused about the part where you said "then spray be sure to pump it as open as you can get it then spray with silcone spray and wipe clean then spray again and wipe clean." Am I spraying the brake pads here or something else?

Thank you!

No, he's saying to take the caliper off the disc, take the pads off the caliper, then lubricate all the moving parts first with brake cleaner, then silicone spray. Make sure the pads and the disc don't get sprayed, since those are the parts you really don't want to be lubricated.

Ian- You have no sense of adventure!

Al

There is absolutely nothing wrong with your scooter. For a Stella, a grabby front brake is very very NORMAL. The best advice it probably to just get used to it. Check out StellaSpeed for more information to back up what I'm saying.

If its locking up all the time, there's gotta be something going on.

+1, and I ain't no Stella whiz. I find it hard to accept locking as "normal", "routine", or "typical". It's a Stella, not a Chinese POS.

Al

Yeah, I don't think it is normal. Especially since I rode my friend's Stella and his is vastly better. I'll get to bleeding the brakes soon. Thanks again for all the help.

There is no way a grabby front break is Normal!

I have worked on over 200 stellas and about 3 of them had grabby breaks either because of low break fluid lack of brake fluid ,air in the line , lose fittings, leaking piston, worn & lose pads

All of which were put back into normal breaking by fixing one or more of the above problems

Low brake fluid, lack of brake fluid, or air in the lines will not cause grabby brakes. It's fine to change the fluid while you are doing work, but this alone will not fix your problem. It's either the lever sticking, or a sticky seal on the caliper side. Start small, don't tear everything apart.

Low fluid will cause the piston not to return , the piston only moves smooth if it has lube hence being a wet system, the two orings that are on the piston are a big problem and most of the time fix the grabby breaks

Also if understand breaking and push air down the lines to the break calipers you can heat it as you use the break freezing the caliper piston in place because lack of lubricant causing grabby breaks

Speaking before you think an american tridation for generations to come

There are several allen bolts that hold the disc on a Stella, and they are famous for coming loose. Real good idea to check those, not saying that is causing grabbiness. If you remove the caliper do not pull the front brake lever as it will pop the disc brake caliper piston out of it's bore. Good idea to change brake fluid, and good idea to remove the lever, clean and grease.

Ah, I misunderstood your question. In my experience, and based on others' expereiences that I've read, Stella brakes are very sensitive, and don't have much play in the front brake lever at all. However, when you said "locked up", you meant actually stuck locked, not just "super grabbed when I pull the lever." In that case, yes you have a problem.(duh) and there's some good advice here.

Thanks so much again everyone..all of this advice is awesome. A local club is having a ride tomorrow and the plan is that if it doesn't rain too much, we'll go on the ride, but if the weather sucks a friend is going to come over and we're going to do some maintenance in my garage. He wants to bleed his brakes too so hopefully we'll get all of this done then.

Thanks again.