Hi all,
First post here, I've been following this forum for a few years now since my introduction to the coffee industry. I've recently moved to a new town where I am not among the same enthusiasts I used to be, so I've been visiting HB very frequently, especially searching for answers for my tech questions. It's been a great help thus far and I wanted to share what I've been working on.

Boss bought a "working condition" 1996 Astoria and that's all the details I have right now. Boss is sick so I have avoided pestering with questions about the machine. Once I got to it, I could tell it needed some TLC. First observations:

Pump pressure gauge stuck on 10 bar
Boiler level bead missing
Sprayhead / screen / what have you was heavily soiled

After some reading on HB I guess the stuck gauge could be a sign of freezing damage. I live in a very cold climate and the machine was freighted though at least a day of freezing temps.

I hooked it up, gave it some manual fill (no reaction from the boiler level gauge) and turned it on. After some back and forth filling and emptying, the boiler pressure was green zone, pump pressure read 13 (so 3 bar over where it was stuck, don't know what to make of that), auto-fill appeared to work ok. I had exceptionally low pressure at the grouphead however. Judging by the buildup on the screen and shower head I thought this could be clogs in the grouphead. And since there was obviously water in the boiler I thought clogs could be in the level gauge line too. With all that determined I started taking things apart:





If it was stuck on 11 I'd have a great Spinal Tap joke to put here

Already cleaned this once before pic

I found a tiny pinhole for water in a crust of scale between the boiler and lower level gauge connection. I wish I had a pic of that one, it was a keeper. Anyways seeing that amount of scale I decided to take all lines off and descale the boiler.


not bad



pulled hx off -- the metal peelings appear to be some kind of coating on the boiler? Can anyone tell me what this is and how I should deal with it? I descaled the boiler in a mild hot water / vinegar bath to try to avoid taking the coating off but already I'm seeing that it will continue to flake off. Wondering if I should give it a bath in sulphamic acid and take all that coating off.


Evidence of a pretty copper hx under scale and a weird metal coating


Gave the heating element a stronger bath in sulphamic acid


getting in over my head...

I seriously doubt I did this correctly.



post hot water and distilled white vinegar bath. about 2:1 water:vinegar and 8ish hours of soaking, scrubbing


Progress till now -- all the lines are clean too. I got the flowmeter and solenoid apart and gave them a thorough cleaning as well.

So far so good. Electrical, hot water and steam all worked great so I'm not going to mess with it. Pressurestat works and adjusts properly so I'm leaving it too. I am worried about the pump however, and the pump solenoid(?? edit - this is autofill solenoid and it works great) it will be my next target. I tripped a breaker one of the first times I had it plugged in and I wonder if I blew the pump motor fuse. Will have a look at that when I get back to the machine.

Anyone with a tip on the metal coating on the boiler / if I should leave it or hit it with a stronger acid? This same coating is on a few of the lines as well.

The large metallic flakes you have are nickel plating that had come loose from the boiler. One of the techniques to help pass NSF certification is to plate everthing with nickel. Nickel normally has a good bond with copper. The plating process does not like interior surfaces and must be done over a very clean surface. If the interior of the boiler has any left over oxidation from manufacturing the nickel is not going to want to stick. Once you start heating and cooling the difference in expansion rates cause the poorly attached nickel to sheet off.
Be careful with the citric acid as it will eat the nickel and chrome. Muratic seems to be easier on the nickel. It looks like you have had good results with the wire wheel. Just for info, nickel is the second layer in a "triple" plated chrome job. Its copper, then nickel, and then chrome.
jpboyt

Thanks for the reply JP, it was confusing me quite a bit. A lot of these restoration threads I've read showed pics of all-copper pieces and the one I paid attention to in particular never mentioned the Nickel plating. (godlyone's restoration)

I put everything back on the machine and when I attached the water line and turned it on, the pressure gauge read 4 bars line pressure. Seems high but the gauge appears to be working...? Although boiler pressure read much higher than previously (see below).

I manual-filled the boiler and turned the machine on. Auto fill kicked right in and finished filling the boiler. I spent the next hour or so tightening things up as it heated up.

One thing I noticed right away was the pressurestat -- I had to turn it down a good 1/4 turn and it is still a little high. Is this from very clean lines? Or perhaps my gauge-restoration just made things worse.

Also worse news, while steam and hot water were excellent again, I got NOTHING out of the grouphead (not even a trickle). I think I reversed the solenoid, but I don't know how I did that -- IIRC I could only put it back together one way. But I read someone else on HB reversed their solenoid and had the exact same symptom.

I also never once got the pump to kick on. Checked the fuse and it looks good. Auto-fill was going off line pressure and while I got nothing out of the grouphead, I at least expected the pump to kick on... any suggestions to begin diagnosing the pump problem? Could I be looking at further freezing damage?