I have an espresso machine that's mainly a Faema E98 Compact S1, but with a Cimbali M32 Bistro D1 group head. It has a date of 2004 on it's spec plate.

I called in our local bean stockist to have their engineer change the group head seal after its 6 months. He assumed it was a Faema E61 and tried inserting seals for it - no hope!

He couldn't understand why the seals weren't going in so took the machine back to workshops for a week and returned it back to me with little luck. After much Googling, I found out the group head was an M32 and not an E61. Sorry for the epic piece.

Since then I have ordered and inserted M32 8.5mm seals with and without shim/spacers. Since the unsuccessful engineers attempts, the porter filter/group head leaks, plus it "loses" a lot of water down the waste pipe - never did this before. Has the engineer damaged the group head or portafilter? I can't see any visible signs.

Can anyone shed any light on this please - I run a small tea room, and my customers are getting grumpier by the day because their coffee isn't how they expect it. Your advice would be much appreciated.

Im going to guess- your 3 way valve (solenoid) is leaking or at the o-ring where the 3 way valve (solenoid) mounts to the group. It could be" luck" that it started while being serviced or the tech disasembled and didnt replace the oring or didnt wire correctly. Group must be clean and have correct seal to provide a leak free extraction. Time to investigate.

Hello Kize - thanks for the reply.

I've just changed the seal again on the Group Head. The M32 takes a 70mm diameter x 8.5mm deep seal - I have changed the seal today and water leaked between the PF and GH. I've added 2 x .8mm paper shims/spacers and it is still leaking even though in theory the seal is another 1.6mm deeper!

Before the "engineer" laid a finger on my machine, it was working perfectly ok.

My last resort is to buy a new Group Head for the machine - I'm now waiting for a price

Aha..... been informed it may be a jammed rotary pump.