Well here I go on my new acquisition of an 07 Linea 3gr I picked up for $300! I found it at a local restaurant liquidation sale where they had no experience with espresso machines, and they basically now, if they get something in, they try to sell and if it doesnt sell they call me ! not a bad deal if I do say so myself! anyway... Ive had this about 8 months but was in the process of restoring another machine ( fiorenzato venice 2gr ) which is functioning flawlessly! its a really good machine and with the addition of Erics temp gauge you can get extremely consistent shots all day long! ok back to la Marzocco.... the week after picking up the Fiorenzato on its last leg, they called me back and said we have a couple machines.. bla bla bla... but what I hear was... Hey Dennis, we have a few espresso machines... bla and bla and La Marzocco, and bla ... you think you'd be interested in helping us clean out inventory? of course my answer was... well... ummm YES! lol So now the repair and or restore begins! Things I needed just to have all the parts...... new brew switches, pump, motor, power cords, and water lines... then some repairs initially to groups... had to remove broken off dispersion screws on 2 groups... fairly easy... just patients... and new cap gaskets... which brings me to a question... do the new cap fiber gaskets and o-ring need any lubricant or just a dry fit? Ive looked everywhere and I dont see any reference to this repair except.. someone replaced their gaskets... Id assume no on the paper and yes on cap oring... but any answers would be great! here are a few pics....

All current pics are also here http://www.flickr.com/photos/20226810@N ... 023197935/

Taking home!


Front as of this post after initial cleanup and new brew switches and repaired wiring


Cap gaskets coming off..


cleaning up threads after removing broken dispersion screws:



Steam boiler a little crusty but didnt show to be shorted with meter readings, will have a switch bypass as I dont make allot of milk based drinks but occasionally do

I would put a light film of Dow 111 on each of the o-rings and nothing on the "paper" gasket. I would also count on doing a R & R on the steam boiler heating element to replace the element gasket or o-ring. You might find a little scale in there.

I would also visit this site - http://www.espresso-restorations.com/ to reveal some tips and tricks you may not be aware of.

thanks Eric! I thought that might be the case... I did see that site and its fantastic! ... I had to make several calls around EP and so on to find a wiring schematic since for some reason, previous owner just removed brew switches and cut them off at wires.... I checked the ohms on each solenoid and they show .62ohms on all of them... so im assuming they are either all good or all bad... I have that Orange book but it is quite out of date for the newer lineas even though it has some good parts like the troubleshooting but then again we can find that all over here... lol I guess its nice to have it because its hard to get... lol On the Boiler, its really nice as I looked over this machine how you can isolate many many parts on this machine for service while its still functional! you could have many failure and business as usual for the most part! hehe

Well my Linea is just about ready for service! I sold the Fiorenzato to one of my coffee clients restaurant and its doing great! Anyway... My kitchen remodeling got in the way of the restoration but i worked on Linea here and there but in a week or so ill be plugging it all in and giving it a test run... I may add the boiler off switch mod since personally i dont make many lattes for myself and its hard enough to keep my kitchen cool with a/c in my condo with a 40 year old a/c unit! Still runs like a champ and clean! They dont makem like that anymore! Lol

As soon as this Linea 3EE is up and running ill be modifying it to PID and maybe sell it off for a synesso or smaller la Marzocco... Will see at that time lol This thing is a honkin beast!

Congratulations, great score. You got quite a money maker there. Good luck with it. Cheers