Mock up assembly today.

A) To see how difficult it will be to get together and if there is a proper order of things and

B) To see if I'm missing anything.

I knew I was going to replace some of the hardware, for example, the screws and clips that mounted the boiler; I think I'm going to replace them with nuts and bolts.


Before assembly, all parts got a second descale in the descaling station shown here:





The neighbors must have wondered what the strange soup was being that at times there were copper pipes protruding from the top of the pot.


Next task, getting the stubborn coffee crud hiding in the portafilter locking lugs on these:



Then I went nuts with the wire wheel and started putting parts in their places and cleaning and descaling a few other parts that hadn't yet been taken care of like the hot water spigot etc.


Here's a general view of the brass and copper goodness:




Soon we'll be putting together for real and I'll have to rig up a test stand

The Saga Continues....

Final assembly and started testing today... here are the gory details:

Here's the boiler. I'm miffed that I can't get it cleaned up anymore than it it. I almost wish all the chrome had come off so it would just be polished copper. I know I'm being a moron being that this is going to be a working machine in a coffee shop but still.

Lesson here is to teflon tape and install everything you can before putting it in the frame. It was much easier to tape up on the bench.



I had decided that I was not going to use the clip/sheet metel screw mounting that had been on the boiler. I found out later that once you plumb it all up the boiler's not going anywhere but I still felt better about a stronger mount to the brackets. Here I'm checking to make sure I'll be able to fit the fasteners and the tools to tighten them as the holes in the boiler brackets are close to the main body:



Here you can see the frame boiler brackets. I needed to enlarge the holes to fit the 1/4 20 bolts.



continued.....

Drilling in a confined place is difficult and the ducks head drill has saved me several times:




I noticed that a lot of the nipples had scale/corrosion on the mating serfaces and I made sure to clean them up well before putting them together. Here's an example:





I'd decided to pressurize the boiler with air as a leak check and found that a standard air chuck quick disconnect fitting had the same thread as the boiler bungs so here is my test set up with the air hose from the compressor attached:



I advanced the regulator on the compressor to about 30 PSI (figuring 2 bar is about 15 PSI X 2) and found two issues.

The triangle mount for the heating element is bent in at the bolt holes. I attempted to bend them back but didn't get much deflection back to square. When I chucked up the air hose there was a little hissing from the teflon gasket and a few turns on each bolt stopped that leak. If it leaks under heat and water/steam pressure I'm giong to have to remove the element and either get a bigger crow bar or replace it as the mounts have snugged up against the boiler cover:





The OPRV is leaking no matter how far down I tighten it. I took it apart and flipped over the teflon disk and even squared and dressed up the mating serface and it still hisses a bit. I'm suspecting that under steam pressure it might actually seal what with the heat and the moisture. If it doesn't I'll be getting a new one. Cross checking the boiler pressure gage with the compressors regulator gage indicates that the OPRV can pop off as low as 10 to 15 PSI and as high as 40 with compressed air:



Next I have to rig up a 220 socket on my generator pigtail as I do not have 220 in my garage. I'll get a hose adaptor for water and check for auto fill and presurize the group side of things with water to leak check.

That's all for today....

Here's a glamor shot of the units insides:

Final check out yesterday or "How I found out my emergency generator is not working..."

So I don't have 220 in my garage. I rigged up a 220 jack on the end of the generator pig tail I used to use at my old house to feed my electrical panel.

Got a hose adapter and had water to the machine and started the generator. Flipped the switch to the left (Boiler fill) and waited a few seconds and, CLICK... pump started and the boiler filled and stopped. So much for wondering if the boiler fill was working.

Flipped the switch to the right past off to position two and heard the generator take the load from the element starting. So far so good. Stood there watching and could see a little bubbling/fizzing at the vac breaker and figured it'd pop up before to long. About this time the generator starts popping and backfiring and decides it doesn't want to run.

Three carb tear downs later and the thing still doesn't want to run. I've either got a warped carb flange or an intake valve that's not sealing correctly.... oh well... another project to add to the list.

So... I need to give this thing a check out and the only 220 jack I have is in the house, in the house, in the basement. I lug this very light (HA) thing down the stairs and set it up on the washing machine. Hook my water interconnect onto the hose bib on the end of my sink faucet and plug her in.

Now I'd had a few connections to tighten when I hooked water to it in the garage so there were no leaks at this point and it warmed up nicely.

The only issue I had was the boiler safety valve was hissing a bit so I shut it down, removed pressure and took the fitting and polished the sealing surface with emory paper, watching it with a loupe. Put it back together and now only the most faint hiss at 1.2 bar.

I'm cleaning the nasty Faema MPN grinder that she got with this machine so I hope to have some coffee in it today.

Here's a pic of some of the action:

Just a quick question. I just picked up a Midi of this machine (slightly shorter, 2 group as well). Was teflon tape used in the original construction or is it something added? I was thinking of not using teflon tape on the rebuild I intend on doing. Because the metals are so soft I think I could seal these with a high enough torque on screwed connections. I'm only concerned because Teflon tape is generally rated to 135 oC. Did you use the higher-rated gas tape (yellow)? It's rated to 260oC.