I have a direct plumbed Fiorenzato Volante, water pressure is 38 pounds, and I also use one of Eric's thermometers at the e61 hex screw. My machine started to lose temp on the second consecutive pull - didn't rebound as fast as usual and rather than hitting the usual 201 it was falling down to 197 with the same procedure. I took out the mushroom to inspect and removed a tiny bit of scale I found. The top Teflon gasket after 7.5 years was crushed too much to reinstall the mushroom so I put in a new gasket but couldn't get that after repeated attempts to seal either. So, I took it to Espresso Primo in Culver City for repair. It's now come back in worse shape and cost me a lot of money, though the mushroom does now seal. The temp after 3 hours of idle time is only 172 and the pump sounds a little odd though it can still pull 2 oz in 20 seconds.

Before I lug this anvil back to Primo I was hoping to get some clue of what might be wrong.

Thanks in advance,
Ed

Just a side note:
I've gotta say, I'm impressed that my 11+ year old Miss Silvia that sits boxed up in the attic still fires up and works every couple of years when the Volante is down for repairs. She produces nice looking shots with the Macap MXK, too bad they don't have the same depth and complexity of taste as those from the Volante. But it tides me over!

What service was performed by the folks in Culver City?

I've been refurbing an E61 Quick Mill Anita that I picked up recently, which had a completely blocked group. Pulled the shower head to find baked on crud. After a complete disassembly and cleaning of the coffee side of the group with JoeGlo, all is well.

Poke around here and you'll find plenty of service guides and tips for the E61.

Nope, the portafilter gasket, screen and dispersion screen were all JUST replaced. Regardless of those the long idle temp of the e61 should be up around 205 f on my thermometer. not down at 172.

Anybody say its the pressurestat? Its been a few years since its been replaced.

interesting. I did do a long flush to check that 1. the machine would refill and 2. so I could bend down and look in the cabinet at the water line pressure gauge to make sure it was high enough. Tonight when I get home I'll do a series of long flushes and see if that helps. I'll try to post an iPhone video i took last night of the gauges and temp.

Once Pstat has been ruled out, I'd move on to thermosyphon stall/ blockage.

Ed and I have had several email exchanges re the operation of his Volante.

I do believe that the pstat (MA-TER) on this machine controls a separate relay (not SSR) which, in turn, sends power to the heating element. What I write now is a boring exercise but can be revealing. On a fully warmed up machine just at idle, the thermometer should read 205-206 given how I believe your pstat is set up. Watch the boiler pressure gage and you will see it slowly fall to around 0.75 bar. At that point you should hear a click (the mechanical relay) and the boiler pressure will rise to around 0.95 bar in about 5-6 seconds. It should take about 90 seconds for it to fall to 0.75 bar and the cycle begins again.

Does this describe the operation accurately ?

If, on a fully warmed up machine, the thermometer reads in the 170's, simply do a 1-2 second group flush and walk away for 15-20 minutes. Do NOTHING else to the machine. If, after these 15-20 minutes, the thermometer has risen to 205-206, this tells me that your brew valve has a slight leak and is allowing the thermosyphon system to enter a stall.

Replacement cost and time - $15-18 and 5 minutes max on a machine at or near room temperature.

here it was after 2 hour warm up

Eric you will see the old thermocouple which I re-installed to see if the problem was the newer thermometer. I'll have to see if it falls to .75 tonight. In this video it stays at 1.0. By the way in our earlier emails unbeknownst to me the pressure gauge was broken its since been replaced.

It doesn't come back up to 205 temp at any time.