Semi hydraulic 2

Today I took some time off to set the front brake up.

Initially I couldn’t get it to tighten up evenly.

First thing I tried was a pair of new Hel washers on the master. The old ones let brake fluid through. This tightened everything up.

Eventually I felt that the hose from the brake fluid calliper was “sweating” out fluid. Changed it to a real hydraulic hose meant for a car. Overkill maybe but it did the job.

The hydraulic fluid calliper was bought of chasspeed. God piece if kit. I could just have had the fluid in the hose but this felt safer.

While filling up. I saw that fluid was letting out however I tried to tighten things up. I removed the slave and tried it up in the open to see if it leaked from within or from the banjo connections.

The fault was the washers. I found it out after I changed the banjo itself to a Hel one and it still leaked. I replaced the washers to a Hel one and managed to seal it up. Suddenly the system got tightened up quickly and my semi hydraulic now works.

Fitted the big circlip and fixed the front brake lever up with a strap to hold it tight and let air wander up during the night.

As mentioned the hydraulic fluid container is from Chasspeed. All the hydraulic Hel parts as cables, banjos and good washers are from Beedspeed and the slave “puck” cylinder is from Scootrs. The semi master is of a piaggio bike.

Semi hydraulic

I had some issues with leaks from the master. I got 2 new Hel washers and it seems to have solved the problem.
Only thing left is to figure out how to bleed the small Scootrs inboard slave cylinder. It’s no obvious clear way of doing it.

Right now I’ve put a strap on the front brake to let the air get up an liquid down very slowly by the forces of physics.

Fettle with the front hydraulic setup

Since I wanted to keep the original looks of the scooter handlebar as clean as possible and I’d like the rear brake light to engage when braking with the front brake, I’ve opted for the old PX style switch.


The way to go is to cut the brake outer and stick this plastic thing in between. Connect the cables as you would on the foot brake switch and just thread a control cable through.

In the last delivery I had received a hydraulic hose with the wrong angle on the banjos. After returning it I received a replacement with straight angled banjos.

I connected it up to see if the length of the cable and the angle of the banjos would work. Will have to correct the alignment and angle since it touches the dust cap right now. I may say that the setup looks solid and will probably work.

I do get a good clearance from the tyre and that’s most important. I wouldn’t want them to touch.
It will be interesting is to see how the Scootrs slave cylinder works. It is held in place by the original circlip.

Front brake semi hydraulic

I will, on this project, try out a semi hydraulic conversion. I bought the appropriate master originating from a modern Piaggio scooter. I run a shorter hose bought from beedspeed and I have a shortened of front brake cable to operate the master.

I use a scootrs hydraulic slave popped into the slot where the break mechanism used to be. It’s held in place by a renewed circlip. Hopefully this set-up will give me enough braking power without to much hassle or fiddle with adjustments.

I got the plate holding the master out of eBay, makes the job easier!