I've had this wall-mounted faema velox ( like this: Gaggia duo and faema velox - two wall-mounted machines of the same period ) sitting here for a few years now i'm finally ready to try make it work. It's all opened up in pieces and cleaned as much as i could so far.

it looks like the machine has been sitting for decades with (hot?) water in it. There is a bunch of problems some of them quite major:

1. the piston cylinder is corroded at the piston-down end only and the only way i can imagine this work is to redrill/shave the hole expanding it by about 1/2 mm all around which would mean ->

2. the piston rubbers , pretty hard to get to start with from what i understand will have to be wider in diameter outside . then the question is ,, will this work anyway ? is there another way to deal with points 1 and 2?

3. the spring needs to be replaced . this shouldn't be an issue if i can work out how to open the thing. i remember there was a webpage on how this was done somewhere but i can't find it anymore.

4 . i cannot open the heating chamber . I'm two bolts short of removing them all but it shows no signs of moving. One of the six bolts that is holding the heater plate to the main group body is broken inside. i have tried drilling through it but gave up . anyway it seems to be broken deep enough so as not to be holding the two pieces together . then there is another bolt that i cannot open nor can i work out what it does. I have however tested the heater element by plugging it in dipped in water and since it's warming i think this issue can be ignored for the time being . have also descaled the heating chamber . this was all literally one big rock as i could see through the two holes going into it. ( actually still working on this but the big part is done.

i think until these issues are taken care of everything else (gaskets and all) is minor and irrelevant ; i am however curious if there is a modern part that does the job of the mercury thing ( sorry , my espresso-machine lingo is close to zero. ) , which does seem to be alright. I love the simplicity of this machine and would like to keep this simplicity.

I have never restored a coffee machine before other than fiddling with my Cimbali junior . ( I have restored many italian bicycles of the same era which simply means i feel comfortable and oddly familiar with the metal parts and mechanics

any thoughts hints ideas links etc will be appreciated

alin

Hi Alin,
I have had the same problem with the pistons of a French build Faema Urania. That machine has the same piston seals as yours as far as I can see. The bottom one is a double sided seal (called "W" gasket). You will not find that size seal anymore, at least I didn't. So I decided to make new pistons on witch availeble seals would fit.
The screw in the back is probably a ristrictor to set the flowrate of the water entering the cilinder.
Here some pictures how I made the pistons:

Frank

The original and new to become


M12 x 1.25 thread inside


Finding the right size for the new gaskets


In progress


Old and new


Finished

Hi Frank and thanks for your reply.

I think i have seen your pictures online , in fact these were the only pictures i could find about this kind of piston on the whole internet. I do now have a whole series of things to ask you, if you don't mind

- did you also have to expand the cylinder hole because of corrosion ? on my machine , even having the right seal as it is it would surely leak since the surface on the lower end is rather porous

- where did you get the seals from and what type/size ? don't know if it's possible but i was actually considering the possibility of having the seals custom made ( havn't looked into it but i live in japan where there seems to be some excentric person/small company making custom versions of just about anything ???)

- how did you open the piston to replace the spring ? which side do you start from ? the bearings side or the brass piston side . i can imagine compressing the actual spring somehow (how?) then either knock the bearings out and remove some other shaft that's behing them or at the other end unscrew the brass piston part .

more questions but this should do for now. Thanks a lot for your answers.

so is your machine working, making good coffee now ?

alin

Here is a similar machine and Orphan Espresso may be able to help with odd seals:
Faema Wall Mount Ready to Go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wsqw_at...annel_page
and:
Gaggia duo and faema velox - two wall-mounted machines of the same period
parts:
http://www.orphanespresso.com/
Good luck with the restoration!
-Richard

Hi Alin,
You can remove the piston from the shaft. It has (almost) normal thread, M12x1.25 . This is a fine variation of the normal M12.
On this machine it was not necessary to expand the cylinder, but some years back we had a similar case. We took the groups to a engine overhauling workshop and they honed up the cylinders. After that the original pistons were to small and I had to make new ones also. The rubber seals are flexible enough to stretch them op a little around the bigger pistons.
For this project I ordered a set of every V-gasket I could find, too see which one fitted the best in the cylinder. After that I made the piston to fit the gasket.

The machine was not mine, but till now it still works fine.

The thread on the shaft is long enough to expand the spring till its end, so it is easy to dis- and reassemble.
Here a picture of the shaft without the piston from a Aurora I'm working on.


Frank

Hi Alin,

I recently restored my faema veloxtermo (AKA "faema wall mount" or "faema velox") to full function.

This machine is simply great!

Personnally, I simply brushed the cylinder/spring to get rid of evident rust, and applied a thick layer of Dow 111 grease on the walls of the cylinder and spring surface as finish. This way, I coud keep the original piston & spring and simply sourced original replacement seals here:

http://www.nuovaricambi.it/caffemarca-d...20CAFFE%27

or here:

http://www.nuovaricambi.us/Catalog.cfm and choose Faema2 tab


The final result is perfectly tight and I have been extracting my best ristrettos ever for over a month now without any pressure leaks.
By the way, do not buy the zodiaco group spring that is available from this retailer: it is 2cm too long (it is meant to fit the standard lever groups without flash boiler).

As for the boiler: in my machine (which is similar to the one shown in the video vault of http://www.orphanespresso.com) you have first to unscrew and remove a small water admission pipe from the bottom of the group: this pipe is positioned in the middle the coils of the heating element and "hooks" the latter to the boiler. In earlier vesions, this pipe does not exist, and the water admission channel is drilled in the heating plate stage.

I hope it helps,
Best,
François

yellow_speedster wrote:The bottom one is a double sided seal (called "W" gasket). You will not find that size seal anymore, at least I didn't. So I decided to make new pistons on witch availeble seals would fit.

The Urania W seal is available, the seals from the Faema Zodiac lever group fit. Presumably the wall mounted machine has the same piston size as the other Faema machines.

akabe wrote:3. the spring needs to be replaced . this shouldn't be an issue if i can work out how to open the thing. i remember there was a webpage on how this was done somewhere but i can't find it anymore.

The piston should unscrew. If the body of the piston rotates freely there may be a flange at the top that the rod screws into and that the piston body rotates on. I don't know your specific machine, but on my Urania that had a hole in the side of it that I just had to put a pin wrench in. There are standard sizes for pin wrenches (DIN) and pins and the hole in the Urania piston is smaller than modern DIN standard specifies. An adjustable (hinged) pin wrench gave the right combination of small pin and crescent diameter. No idea whether it applies, but its something to keep in mind if you are looking at it. Using a screwdriver or something similar in the hole would be both dangerous to the roundness of the piston and uncool.

thank you everybody for the informative and inspiring feedback . (what a wonderful, supportive forum this is

yes i have managed to remove the piston using my trusty bicycle bottom bracket tool.

here is a clear picture of the piston.

can somebody confirm that the seals available will fit this model. ( it looks different from frank's though it does look similar to the zodiac one) . // my big concern now is the state of the cylinder ,( posting higher rez pictures ) . it is pretty corroded . will it leak ? guess the best thing to do would be to order new seals and actually try it out. ideally i'd like to intervene as little as possible on the machine. so, should i try it as it is and if it doesn't leak just keep it like this ? should i just sand it as smooth as possible? this would make the corroded end a bit wider than the rest of the cylinder . it actually already is a bit wider . would the rubber seal be able to handle this difference in width and is it a sensible thing to do ? conversly , if i machined the cylinder even by a fraction of a milimiter would the seal still work or will it just fall through ? what sort of tolerance do these things have . Evidently you can only really answer these questions by trying out different things but i'm wondering if anyone has had any experience with this.


The other thing is opening the boiler . i'm intrigued by it now beyond the point of being able to ignore it. The machine doesn't have the pipe going into the boiler from below. does this make it an "older model" ? there is a 59/1 stamped at the back of the heater place which i'm guessing is the manufacture date. does anybody know when these started being made? unlike the machine in the video with the beautiful, elaborate badge this one only has a very plain faema sticker/decal at the front . so i'm wondering , if there is no pipe running through, what is holding the heating plate dead-stuck to the main group body


there is the mysterious bolt that doesn't move at all . On first impression i'd be inclined to think this is short , and useless/functionless . however, on second though it might actually be a (totally perverse) way to lock the two parts together . the procedure would have been : a long bolt is driven through the group/boiler body catching the heater plate somewhere along the way . ( actually not along the way but at the end ) . once the bolt is in, the group body and the bolt itself are drilled through and a rivet/cotter pin is pushed through making the whole thing virtually unopenable. is this a factory job? a custom job ? am i being paranoid or missing the point. i'm trying to post pictures as clear as possible . other than what i'm suggesting here i can't really see any function for this bolt.


does anybody have or know any pictures of the heater plate and the group body opened, separated. this is one of those times i wish for x-ray vision . i'm particularly curious about the profile of the two parts where they are joined. not necessarily this generation and probably an urania, president etc would be equally useful. i'm wondering if it makes sense trying to knock the cotter pin out which could probably be done from the inside with the right L-shaped tool , otherwise it could be drilled out.

these issues aside it's all progress

coffeefrog wrote:The Urania W seal is available, the seals from the Faema Zodiac lever group fit. Presumably the wall mounted machine has the same piston size as the other Faema machines.

Hi Coffeefrog,
I presume you are right. A year back I ordered all piston gaskets I could find at Nuova Ricambi. I never received the ones that look as big like these in the Velox. Only got the small ones, +/- 6-8mm thick.
But thanks for the tip, I will try to order them again.