Pulsing front brake on Stella 4t

[Eel]

Initially I thought this was air in the line but after bleeding the brakes, I think may be a warped brake disc.

The guy I bought the scooter from used a disc lock and I have the feeling he may have warped it somehow.

Any after market options other than malossi. I checked scooter works and 150 is too steep a price to pay for just one brake disc

Anyone looked into ebc? It looks like they may have something for the star 150 but I can't find a part number

[jimmbomb]

maybe you can take it off, then take it to an autoparts store, and see if they can turn it.

[Eel]

maybe you can take it off, then take it to an autoparts store, and see if they can turn it.

You have a point, I thought about that too but my local auto parts store charges 20 bucks regardless of the size of the brake disc. Kinda steep for no guarantee.

I had a chat with EBC and they gave me the model number for the brake disc for an LML Star Deluxe 150 - (MD910D).

Turns out its the same model number as the most modern rendition Vespa PX150.

Looks like the EBC one is approximately 60 bucks and fairly readily available. For 40 bucks more than a rotor turn, I'm inclined to just replace for the rest of my life rather than shave down and risk it warping again.

[TheTallPaul]

Does really sound like a warped rotor.

Can an autoshop turn something so small? I wonder if it would be a bad idea compromise on a motorbike part since it so critical.

[fisher1]

Before removing it or doing something mechanical, try cleaning all the brake surfaces to completely to remove any traces of .... well, everything.

Also, ..... sounds odd, but verify you have the correct (lower than rear) pressure in the front tire.

[dalebor]

I bought a new leftover 2012 Stella last spring and and the front brake has pulsed since day one. Classic warped disk symptom. The first thing that I did was measure the disk runout with a dial indicator. It was nearly perfect; no warped disk.

Next I cleaned the surface of the disk with disk brake cleaner, including the inside of the holes in the disk.

I then removed the caliper and took out the pads. There was quite a bit of grease on the pad backing shim. There is usually a bit of grease on the backing shim and pad locator pin on disk brakes to get rid of the squealing sound but this was too much grease for my liking.

I thought that maybe some of the grease got onto the pad. I used brake cleaner to thoroughly remove all the grease from the caliper, pad backing shim, and the pad braking material. I scrubbed the pads with brake cleaner. I then sanded the pads enough so that the pad had a nice new clean surface. I then put a dab of grease on the pad backing shim and locating pin and put everything back together.

With all the above work the pulsing was much reduced but still present. This year I'm going to try and find some aftermarket pads and maybe a new disk.

I've been riding motorcycles for 40+ years and never seen anything like this. Very annoying.

[Eel]

I did the clean and sand too first but to no avail. Same result as you. I had slightly reduced pulsing but it never went away and now its back with a vengance.

I pulled the rotor last night (took longer than I expected since the hub needs to physically come off to slide the rotor out)

Putting on a flat piece of glass, I noticed that the rotor rocks back and forth a bit. Its not a lot but I'm crossing my fingers that this resolves the issue.

Ordered a factory rotor from my local genuine dealer. Cost was the same as the EBC rotor.

Thinking about getting the EBC organic pads to complement.

[Eel]

Final Update: Replaced the rotor with a new OEM from the dealer. Replaced pads with new EBC Organic Pads

NO pulse as of yet. Got about 100 miles on it so far. Hopefully this solves the problem for good.

[dalebor]

Well, now that spring has sprung and most of the snow is gone in Minneapolis, it was warm enough to work in the garage without getting frostbite. I replaced the Stella's crappy stock tires with some decent ones. I chose the Continental Zippy1.

http://www.amazon.com/Continental-Zippy ... B0043YBRMO

With the new tires it's a completely different scooter. It now likes to lean in turns instead of having to force it. I no longer have to worry about locking up the front tire if I so much a breathe too much on the brake lever.

And, best of all, the pulsing on the front brake is gone! I didn't replace the tires to eliminate the pulsing. It never occurred to me that the pulsing could be caused by the tire. I just wanted the Stella to handle better than a tractor.

Dale B