Flow problem with gaggia baby

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Jdturner
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 years ago

#1: Post by Jdturner »

I am a newbie with expression machines and recently purchased a gaggia baby through eBay. There is a flow problem but before I send it back I wanted to see if I could sort it out.

I have check for the air lock and taken off the shower screen, there was a fair bit of scale so I have descaled these.

I ran the pump, while the shower screen was off and the problem is further up the system. I took off the solenoid valve as I had read that this can get clogged if the unit has not bend descaled and sure enough it was. Cleaned that and ran again but I think it has clogged again. My guess here is that a load of scale has dislodged in transit and is clogging the system. So I am looking for some advice as to what to do, the descaling routine seems to reply on the unit pumping. Is there a way of cleaning the boiler with out running through the grouphead and is there a way of clearing blockages between the valve and group head exit hole.

Any suggestions would be greatly received.

Thanks
Justin

SJM
Posts: 1819
Joined: 17 years ago

#2: Post by SJM »

Given how much scale you have found, your only real option is to open the boiler and manually descale it. Until you get what is in there cleaned up, it will continue to break loose and cause difficulties in the smaller parts, as you have already seen. This is the most common reason that Gaggias show up on eBay; new owners don't do any maintenance and then one day the machine just doesn't pump anymore. Lucky for us :-)))) given that the solution is pretty simple.

Jdturner (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 years ago

#3: Post by Jdturner (original poster) »

Hi sjm

Thanks for the reply. I had a feeling that it would be something like that. I have never done that before. Do you know if there are any good instructions or a video explaining how to do this

On the plus side I am learning a lot about this machine, dying for a decent brew though.

Thanks
Justin

SJM
Posts: 1819
Joined: 17 years ago

#4: Post by SJM »

I'm feeling just lazy enough not to do the search for you, but if you jump over to here:
http://www.gaggiausersgroup.com

there is a library of articles and a library of links to information that will probably help you.

Susan

Jdturner (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 years ago

#5: Post by Jdturner (original poster) »

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Thanks for the link, some really useful stuff on there I did not know about this site. There is an article on there about disassembly of a classic unit. I think the group and boiler is the same on the baby so only the layout of the tubing and wiring maybe different.

Hopefully, I will be able to complete this and get it all back together again.

Thanks for your help
Justin

SJM
Posts: 1819
Joined: 17 years ago

#6: Post by SJM »

Glad to try to help.
Good luck.
Susan

Jdturner (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 10 years ago

#7: Post by Jdturner (original poster) »

hi
Thought I would update this thread as I have now resolved the issue. There was a lot of scale in the boiler. There is a very good link below showing how to split the boiler on a gaggia Classic, it is a little different on the baby but close enough to follow.

http://protofusion.org/wordpress/2012/0 ... -cleaning/

However, My problem still existed after doing this. The problem turned out to be a severe blockage in the solenoid valve that required me to take it apart. To do that you need to take it off the boiler, disconnect the electrical wires and hose. Then remove the coil by undoing the nut on the top. This should leave you with the brass valve. At the bottom of the stem of the valve there is another nut, get a spanner on that and hold the bottom of the valve and undo. You will then have two brass pieces and a metal slider with a spring around it. Remove the slide and you will see two holes. one raised in the centre and a larger hole in the base. It is the smaller hole that caused the problem in my case. I used a paper clip as a tool to physically push the scale down and then blew through the whole (Make sure the holes are pointing down so that scale does not go in your eye). In my case it cleared very quickly and following that a soak in descaler overnight just to make sure.

Then re assemble and run water through the unit as you would after a descale. Mine now runs as good as new.

Thanks for the advice
Justin