La Peppina cleanup progress and questions

[SantoSerafino]

Hello everyone. I'm guessing I should start a new thread rather than add to the trailing end of the 'redux' thread.

I'm finding I should have ordered Jo Glo and citric acid before the machine got here (as I did the seal kit). The only thing I could find locally was the descaler Durgol, and I'm not sure that's safe for a La Peppina (is it ok on brass)? Citrus acid I'm still hoping to find at a pharmacy or market.

Can I use dishwashing detergent or is that a big no-no?

Any ideas on how exactly to clean out the layer of black crud in the cylinder and piston? A buddy at a local coffee house was kind enough to give me a little bit of CleanCaf and I've got the piston soaking in that and have run a little through the group, but if I need to soak the cylinder I need to find a way to block the hole to the group.

Cylinder (overexposed flash photo barely rescued):


Piston:


Also, do I need to be careful about getting CleanCaf or descaler on the Kettle surfaces?

Lastly, here's the dispersion screen screws I'm going to have to contend with. I need to clean out the slots and may need to deepen them a bit before I put a screwdriver to it.


I've read the various threads here and the how-to at OrphanEspresso, I'm sure I'm not retaining everything but I'm working on it.

[mhoy]

Citrus acid I'm still hoping to find at a pharmacy or market.

Try a supplier for beer/wine brewing as it's used to clean things out.

Can I use dishwashing detergent or is that a big no-no?

Well.......if you can be sure that it will rinse clean it's OK. I've certainly on occasion put my portafilters baskets through the dishwasher but it's kinda hard to hurt stainless steel. On the other hand, I'm pretty careful with the chromed pieces. The portafilters themselves just get a rinse in hot water (and any Cafiza the happens to leak over during a backflush).

Cafiza is a common Espresso Machine Cleaner (I use it all the time). It is composed of trisodium phosphate (TSP), sodium percarbonate, sodium trippolyphosphate and I've cleaned a number of items with it (including a couple of internal parts during a massive rebuild), but I rinse all items when done in really hot water a couple of times when done as I have no wish to taste it.

Mark

[orphanespresso]

Wow! Now that is a great example of piston seal wear. Looks like the black stuff on the cylinder and piston is a coating of rubber from the old seal so I doubt either citric acid or coffee cleaner is going to dissolve that stuff. Before you resort to abrasive you could perhaps up your arsenal of cleaners just on those two spots....try some laquer thinner on a rag to dissovle that rubber coating, won't hurt any of the metal surfaces and could remove the old rubber. If it does not disssove you may have to resort to an abrasive such as Barkeeper's friend before moving on to actual emory cloth.

The kettle is enamel over steel so your concern is mostly scratching it and not many cleaners of any kind or strengthe will effect the surface negatively. As far as worries about chemical incompatability with the components, of greater concern is the effect on aluminum rather than brass....brass is pretty stable and resistant to most chemicals (witness its use on boats).

In order to soak the cylinder....turn the kettle upside down and remove the big washer then plug up the holes with some parafilm....or a big wad of chewing gum.

And those screws, yes clean the slots out but most important find a screwdriver that fits the slot perfectly with no slop. When you are all set to remove them keep the screwdriver bit absolutely perpendicular to the face of the screw and lean straight down on the bit while slowly applying pressure...it may help to rest your chin on the screwdriver handle and really push, but straight down, and more or less channel all your force into a CCW turn, as long as the needed force to turn the thread is less than the strength of the brass screw head it will turn but it is critical have a perfect fit in the slot and slow but steady turning force. Once it is broken free and not broken off your worries are over.

Looks like a fun project
Doug

[SantoSerafino]

Heh, fun. Watch out or I'll send it to you.

I've found what looks like some chrome loss in the kettle recess of the main body, I hope that wasn't a result of the CleanCaf soaking I did.

I gather it's best to try to clean out the area of the heating element without removing the element so I don't have to replace gaskets?

Parafilm sounds like great stuff, I'll keep it in mind but get to chewing some gum.

Thanks Mark and Doug for the ideas. I should be able to pick up a descaler today (either citric or one of the common coffee machine products carried at a big hardware store), and I might brave a bit of TSP or the lacquer thinner idea after I read up on possible residue.

Incidentally, I was able to use the clamping action of the base along with the piston action to get the kettle/group assembly off fairly easily. I let the piston raise the assembly, clamped it in place and moved the piston back down, released the clamp, etc.

[orphanespresso]

As far as that black gunk and the laquer thinner, just put the thinner on a rag but no soaking. Before the thinner you might try the univeral solvent, alcohol, in the form of Vodka. (I use Everclear for the best of the polar solvents and laquer thinner for the nonpolar....I believe that is the term if I remember my organic chemistry). Good concentration of etOH with little residue worries, unless you are averse to etOH.....looks to me you need something to dissovle the coat or rubber, but of course, abrasion will work as well, and it looks like you are going to have to emory the inside of the cylinder so it is possible to skip a few soaks and rubs and go straight to the wet and dry sandpaper.
Many of the La Peppinas have some amount of chrome peeling....not the result of the soaking, after all it was going to peel off anyway.
As far as the kettle removal, some come off easy and some are stubborn to turn the aluminum post inside the kettle. If that post turns CCW easily then the kettle will pop right off and you can manually descale the element.
All in all it is kindof a shock that people let these machines go the way they do....no reason for them to be so crudded up.

[SantoSerafino]

You have confirmed a worry of mine about the cylinder. If I have to use abrasives I'm tempted to jury-rig something with foam rubber and a wooden dowel to run off a hand drill or maybe even the drill press. Sort of a do-it-yourself cylinder hone.

I assume one has to keep it to a minimum for fear of enlarging the cylinder and losing compression (now why does this all sound familiar...)

[orphanespresso]

Really, probably no need to go that far - some 100 grit wet/dry, then 400 wet/dry sandpaper, and that would be enough (coarse steel wool followed by fine steel wool would probably work too) Your main concern is to not damage the screw that holds in the big washer at the top of the cylinder! That ONE screw is the most important because, so far, we don't have a good replacement for it! Really, the sandpaper or steel wool will make it nice & clean, smooth, and won't accidently remove any metal. BUT (of course, there is always a "BUT"), you may suspect we've thought about this, and we do have oversize O-rings for the piston seal....kind of like reboring an automotive cylinder for bigger rings. You just don't want to do it, unless it's really necessary. LOL - we spent a lot of time worrying about our Peppina, we wanted to be sure she would function, forever, no matter what!

[SantoSerafino]

Getting the kettle off wasn't a problem, it released after some of the borrowed CleanCaf dribbled down from the cylinder into the join.

Is the original texture of the cylinder smooth or do they typically show machining marks? Is it correct to assume the cylinder is also plated? If so the plating in mine seems intact so I'm inclined to try a soak in citric acid next before resorting to abrasives?

I am still stumped about how to descale the heating element area. Do I just grit my teeth and soak the area in citric and accept additional losses of chrome?

Doug, you mentioned a 'manual descale'--are we talking about brass brushes, sandpaper and so on?

Am I understanding correctly that the dechroming of this area basically does not matter in terms of water toxicity? I presume I should be careful not to get citric acid up around the rim area as there is a danger of chasing the chrome right up over the edge and affecting the cosmetics of the machine?

I'm becoming very curious about the construction of this central part. Is it brass or aluminum? Could the cylinder be a separate part, perhaps inserted before chroming? The lower part of the group head looks to be separate--the part with the stamped projections for the PF.

Photos of my peeling chrome and scale, the latter almost looks to be causing the underlying chrome to bubble (or did the bubbling chrome create a spot for the scale to form?).

[timo888]

A 220V Peppina I bought for parts was (ironically) in better condition than any 110V Peppina I've seen. It had seen almost no use. On the inside of the base near the heating element the (nickel?) plating is shiny, and the sacrificial anode is unconsumed. The kettle is pristine.

This 220V machine has machining marks inside the cylinder. I'll post a picture later today when the light is better.

Regards
T

[timo888]

[timo888]

[SantoSerafino]

Thanks very much Timo. That helps me with what to expect as I finish the cleaning of the cylinder

On mine I continue to notice a difference of color visible between the cylinder and the rest of the assembly. Not only on the outside but on the inside as well there's a distinct change about 1 cm above the bottom, so I'm thinking there at least I may not have to worry about chrome.

I will report back after I have a go with citric acid on the scale in the burner area.

[orphanespresso]

Oh yes, the 40 years of water working away at the metal. All of this will be history once you get it all back together. Basically clean off the flakes with a wire brush or just have at it to get all of the loose stuff removed. what is important are the sealing surfaces....get them nice and clean and chrome be damned since the goal is to have the function 100%. Do your best to keep the cosmetics up, but frankly, if chrome is peeling it should be peeled off and get all down to the point of stability of the surfaces. The cleaning inside will not effect the function, but to me, you basically try to reset the clock for the machine and put it as right as you can. We have some pretty funky machines that we enjoy a lot.
Mechanical descaling....just have at it, wire brush, sandblaster, pointed pick, whatever....just have at it and you are going to be clean and ready for another 40 years when you are done. You can't undo the last 40 years of time and neglect but you can get the machine as good as it can be.
Rust never sleeps
Doug

[SantoSerafino]

Incidentally I found some very small sized plugs at mcmaster-carr, just the thing for someone who does a lot of specialized cleaning and needs to plug small holes temporarily and so on. If you search for 'rubber stopper' you'll find several pages of different products which work in different ways.

I've got the water valve/washer screw out so I'm going to use a gasket with a fender washer to seal the hole there.

Also got the screen screws out. One of them was tough to turn for about 7 revolutions. I finally had to clamp the body down on my workbench (with cork padding to protect it) and apply a lever to the screwdriver shaft.

I now see that my observation about the grouphead 'hood' being separate was a johnny-come-lately sort of thing. Oops.

[orphanespresso]

Glad the screws are all safely out....that is one nervy part since nobody wants to be drilling out those small screws. Seems like progress is being made!

[timo888]

On mine I continue to notice a difference of color visible between the cylinder and the rest of the assembly. Not only on the outside but on the inside as well there's a distinct change about 1 cm above the bottom, so I'm thinking there at least I may not have to worry about chrome.

On the outer wall of the cylinder, the plating is uniform on my 220V. Machining striations are visible on the outer wall. There is a shallow irregular gouge -- the first two strokes of Zorro's Z, from when the body had been twisted and lifted in the chassis with the set-screw still in place

Regards
T

[SantoSerafino]

Well I don't know what the story is on the cylinder. I would expect visible chrome loss in the wear areas and inside the cylinder (especially after all the citric acid and now Barkeeper's Friend I've used on it) if it's the same as the rest of the assembly.

It occurred to me that localized applications of concentrated citric acid on the patches of scale might work okay, so I've been trying that. Jury is still out.

One thing I have learned--the metal arm assembly under the piston does not like citric!

...but I think it will be ok.

Meanwhile, apparently the multiple-acquisition-syndrome starts immediately upon pulling the trigger on your first machine:


No this one's not a La Peppina.

(Someone mentioned in another thread that one can arrange one's own shipping from Italy--I'd sure like to find out more about that, the shipping charges were monstrous (and I confirmed them on the Poste Italiane website).

[SantoSerafino]

Here's the piston, unrecognizably clean!

[mhoy]

I love to see parts brought back to their proper condition. You'll be pulling shots soon. Keep up the great work.

Mark