Hi All,
My Gaggia Classic is not flowing well at all. It's down to a trickle. After days of reading posts and viewing youtube videos, I found this forum and hope to find help.
After about 8 years, I had the pump replaced last year for the same symptoms. It seemed to work fine after that (albeit louder). When the new pump seemed to be "failing", I went online and I have since learned all about descaling and backflushing. I descaled twice with cleancaf and have gone through two sessions of backflushing with cafiza. I also took off the shower head and gave it a good cleaning.
As of last night, after the third descaling, the machine was pumping like a champion!! I thought I fixed it...until I put in a fresh tank of water for a rinse cycle...and back it went to a trickle.
So, if anyone can suggest a next step, I'd love any help I can get.

I'm hoping when you did your backflushing and descaling that you also removed the shower screen and the dispersion plate and everything behind there is good and clean. If not, that should be done.
If that pathway (external) is all clear, it would probably be time to take the OPV out and give it a good manual descaling.
See Part #28 on this diagram:

http://www.partsguru.com/user/Parts%20d ... _Rev01.pdf

If your pump is working fine, then there is something clogging up the works after that, and the OPV is the most usual suspect.

Susan

If I'm not mistaken, OPV blockage would result in no backflush? When I backflush, it works perfectly--the little whoosh of liquid dumps in to the tray. The screen was taken off and thoroughly cleaned. If I'm missing something, please explain--I'm new to this. Thanks

OPV (over pressure valve) has nothing to do with backflush.
You are confusing it with the 3-way solenoid.

The OPV is mounted at the input to the boiler and regulates the pressure of water to the brew group.
The 3-way releases pressure after the shot, so that you can remove the portafilter without a small explosion.

Thanks again...looks like I have some work to do!!

Here's what you are looking for. It will be on the side of the boiler. The water from the reservoir goes through the OPV before it enters the boiler.

Thanks--I JUST got the dispersion plate off & clean. It took some wrangling as I don't have a lot of hand strength. It was pretty nasty--I scraped quite a bit of scale off. I'll get that all back together & give it a try--if not, OPV next!

If there was a lot of scale on the back (inside) of the dispersion plate, you most likely still have a good build-up of scale deeper into the machine -- OPV, boiler, etc.

I understand the lack of hand strength!!! Take it one step at a time, and don't do more than you can in any one session.

But...sad to say, it looks like you probably will need to do some serious manual descaling of the internals of your Gaggia. Scale doesn't just chose one place to settle, and obviously your descaling didn't get rid of it. Not what you wanted to hear, I know.

Susan

SUCCESS!!!After getting the dispersion plate off & clean, doing one final de-scaling for good measure I am back in business. Thanks for your advice!

One more bit of advice: source some Citric Acid for your future descalings.
It will be cheaper and more effective than the CleanCaf.

Susan