hello and merry christmas. starting project while being complete newbie. i got this from hb.c member and am going to attempt to get it back on the road.

Assistance with identifying 2-group espresso machine


i am not at all familiar w/ e61 so i will be reading quite a bit. from appearances it seems to have lived in a rather harsh environment. everything will need to be disassembled and cleaned at a minimum.

jason

i stopped by mr espresso the brick and mortar yesterday and they said they should have most of the parts for this thing. with that, any remaining reservations about wrenching while newbie went out the window.

one thing i am still searching for is a document which describes testing procedures for the electronic bits. i've got a general layout of where the wires go (albeit with a lot of guessing since its in spanish), but i don't have a good idea of how to go through each part (preferably separately) to make sure its still working.

teardown started.



surprisingly everything on top of the boiler came apart pretty easily


hmmm i wonder what those are

hmm... looks like its been a while since this thing made coffee.

to get the seleniod nut off i ground down a 15/16 wrench. i didnt have anything narrow enouph to fit.

got everything apart, including boiler and took the whole mess to mr espresso for new o rings and gaskets. i cant say enough good things about them. they assembled all of the parts i needed and explained some of the nuances of assembly. i had managed to bugger up the water level sensor wire and they had one of those with the correct connectors.

the citric acid arrived from amazon, so a bunch of parts are soaking. im not too sure about ratios so im starting out with easy to replace brass first. after while ill tackle the group heads etc.

i have a bunch of pictures but something is broken, cant post. everytime i try it makes me login again and wipes out whatever ive typed, pictures, etc.

Good luck with the project! Looks like it will be a fun build. Just a reminder to never soak any chromed parts in citric acid as it will strip the chrome/flake it off.

thank you sir. this is quite a blast. when i first opened the machine top i found it a little bit intimidating but i dived in since i had nothing to lose. after a week dinking with it i think i understand some of the principle of operation. still a few mysteries though.

i've discovered that citric acid is really really slow or i've diluted it too much (i'm only working on brass parts at moment). so i figured i would sous vide the thing like i've seen some other folks do. got a container, water heater element, and thermostat at home depot. when the water starts getting warm the container walls bow so i think i need to double bag it.

few pics of the boiler apart. the pump was a bit stuck but after turning it with a wrench it turns by hand now. i think it may be usable as-is. any advice on how to clean it out? can i run some dilute citric acid through it?

new parts from mr espresso


appreciate any advice on how to restore the gauge surround. take it to get plated or is there an easier way?