Elektra T1 - #771 built in 2000 is now mine - Page 3

[mhoy]

It was a warm sunny Saturday when I took the plunge...





Group Head has some scale.

[mhoy]

Now I hope to remember how to put all this back together or I'll be sending Stefano a box full of parts.



Frame itself ready to be clean, there is some rust on the front right where the drain box is connected. Thank goodness for WD-40 or I couldn't have removed the leg that got some rust spots on the top under the drain box.


This is the bottom of the front stainless steel front along with the inside of the Gicar plastic box. Ugh, roaches like warm places. Glad they are all crispy and dead. The Gicar is not a sealed unit and critters can get in where the wires join the box.

[shadowfax]

Man, I bet you are getting glad that you are doing a real restoration. Looks like everything is pretty easily salvageable--just needs to be really thoroughly cleaned, and then treated well for the rest of its life.

[cannonfodder]

Nice thing about espresso machines, they really are not that complicated. Just a water heater and some supply lines. Everything is made to fit, so if you cannot get that tube to fit on the fittings correctly, chances are you have the wrong tube or bent it when removing it. When I do a tear down, I take lots, and lots of digital photos just in case, particularly the electronics. A little masking tape and pen to mark on it works wonders as well.

Yuck, roaches. You may want to disinfect everything, a couple of times.

[mhoy]

Paul Pratt's first step is pest control. Now I understand why.
http://www.espresso-restorations.com/Schedule.html

I took what I thought was a lot of pictures, now I think I should have taken more.

The big pipes are pretty much done. It's the little ones that still have some black scale along with the boiler.


The boiler has been in citric acid for about 12 hours now. It's barely starting to show copper on the heating element. The inside is about the same color as the heating element. Time to replace the water again. Every now and again I take some of the water out and bring it up to boiling in the microwave and put it back into the bucket to keep things warm.



I'm not sure how to clean out the group though. It's chrome plated and I don't think I should dunk the whole thing in citric acid. I could plug the hole and fill it a couple of times. Other ideas?



Any suggestions on the re-assembly? I'm thinking of using a little bit pipe dope during the re-assembly rather than teflon tape.

[shadowfax]

I descaled my chrome peacock's grouphead with citric acid solution. It didn't seem to have any effect on the chrome plating at all. I wouldn't worry about it. On the other hand, I am not sure how much citric acid will help that sort of a mess. You might need to take it apart a bit more and brush it out.

I would brush it and dunk it if it were me. Unless the plating is starting to chip off, but if that's the case you might want to spend the rather excessive money and have the head re-chromed... I think that ought to cost ~150, but it's probably cheaper than a new grouphead...

[cannonfodder]

Just plug the thermosiphon lines with a cork and fill it with boiling descale solution and let it sit. After a few hours drain and refill. There is not much in there to remove. Once it has gone through a couple of descale cycles you could try to remove the group jet (that screw you see inside the group). But there is no reason to. The descale solution will get down in it and do its job.

FYI, if you ever want to change your group jet to play with preinfusion and water debit, Elektra (or anyone else for that matter) does not make a smaller jet. It does not take a standard E61 group jet. However, a Keihin carburetor jet for a Kawasaki motorcycle fits. I put a size 62 main jet on my machine, that is around 0.5mm, the factory was 0.9mm if I remember correctly.

[mhoy]

I took everthing I could apart and then descaled it. Last night I corked the thermosiphon lines, and poured very hot water over the group head. I then poured very hot descale solution into the head a couple of time.



It looks real nice in there now.


Now is only the boiler and heater would finish up, they are getting close though. I hope there is no harm in letting the thing sit in solution for an extended time.

I guess I do know where all the pieces go.


=-=-
Mark

[zin1953]

;^)

OK, what can I say . . . get 'em while they're hot -- uh, affordable! With the US dollar plummeting, and some vendors already selling their "new" inventory of Elektra Sixties (purchased with the "new and improved" [read: less powerful] dollar) for over $4,000, it was time to jump now or forever wish that I had . . .

So, I now own a brand new, "old" (purchased with the old, more powerful dollar) Elektra Sixties T1 from Chris' Coffee -- at a 23 percent savings over the brand new, "new" machines. Although I originally had thought I'd wait until we re-model the kitchen, that's at least a year or two away, and saving over $1,000 is a lot of $$$$, so . . .

Playtime this weekend!!! (Oh, wait -- $#!+ -- I have to go out of town to a wedding this weekend . . . )

[shadowfax]

Mark,

I noticed that the black base of the frame was really super-nasty looking around the drip tray drain in your earlier post. But in the most recent one with everything put back together but the boiler/heating element, it looks so good I could almost swear it was repainted. Did the crud just wash off, or did you have to do something special?

[Tim356]

Mark,

Great job so far! Looking forward to seeing the machine exterior chrome polished and some shots of fresh espresso pouring forth. Where the old info plate on the front of the machine is riveted. Could the beautiful Elektra emblem on the back be repainted and moved to the front? If there is room and it looks like it belongs,why not! Everyone thinks it's a shame they can't display both sides of the A3 on their counter. The smaller size emblem on the front of my Elektra Micro Casa a Leva looks outstanding from the factory. Keep posting those pics...

Tim356

[mhoy]

I've now used up a pound of citric acid and the inside of the tank is still not spot less. Many places with thick black scale still. Mind you it also has some area of copper too.

For the frame, I stuck it in the sink and washed it with very hot water and cleaning powder. Dried it off and then I scraped off every bit of rust and lightly sanded it. I then applied a light coat of glossy rustolium spray paint. Left it to dry in the sun. It's not perfect but it is certainly good enough.



Having stripped it to pieces the tray design is pretty weak. It has a crack where the copper tube connects to it. In addition, it has a through screw that connects the frame to the plastic tray. If/when water leaks behind and under the tray, the screw can rust and the foot can also rust. Since the front chrome frame is held on by the foot and you can't get the plastic tray off without removing the foot you have problems. Luckily there was enough space for the straw on the WD-40 spray to get in there.



Mark

[mhoy]

Zin1953:
You'll love this machine, it's a really well built system but I guess you know that. Feed it soft water! I'm so convinced that you need to feed an espresso machine softened water. (As I keep cleaning the scale off the inside of my tank).

;^)
... for over $4,000, it was time to jump now or forever wish that I had . . .

I"ll have to tell my wife that my investment is already paying off. She may not exactly see it that way since I took over the kitchen to clean up the machine over the weekend. Parts of the dining room have parts on the floor and the dining room table is occupied by tools and more parts. Luckily I make her latte every morning.

Heating element is almost all clean, just a bit of scale left near the top of the unit.



The parts from Stefano's showed up yesterday. Quick delivery! Anyone know how to rebuilt a steam wand? (Ack I only order parts for one of them, time to order some more parts).

Mark

[cannonfodder]

Very carefully, I have done other wand types but not the ball valve on the Elektra. There are some springs in there, you don't want to launch parts or lose the springs.

[houdina]

Mark
In one of "it seemed like a good deal at the time" ebay moments I picked up two complete steam valves for a T1. So if you have any problems or are just looking for a spare let me know. The valves I have both have steam wands on them but I think you can just switch on a hot water wand if you need.
Gregg

[mhoy]

The entire case is lightly scratched with polishing marks from years of cleaning, really hard to take a picture of too...

Anyone know if the front lower part that holds the control panel is stainless steel or chrome plating? A magnet doesn't stick so I think it's stainless.

Which leads to the question: How does one polish stainless steel?

I'm thinking some kind of electric buffing wheel and some kind of polishing compound. Please feel free to suggest methods and brand names of stuff since I've never done this before.
=-=-
Mark

[SL]

Which leads to the question: How does one polish stainless steel?

I'm thinking some kind of electric buffing wheel and some kind of polishing compound. Please feel free to suggest methods and brand names of stuff since I've never done this before.
=-=-
Mark

Mark, if it is a stainless steel then all you need is a sandpaper and a lot of time. I do not know about Elektra but many machines are made of 304 steel which is very easy to work with. You can start with 220 or 320 grit paper (depending on how deep the initial scratches are) then continue with 400, 600, 1000 (it will start to shine at this point) and finish with 2000. The idea is to move from coarser to finer sandpaper, on every step the current grit will remove the scratches made by previous one and leave finer scratches instead. When you are at 2000 grit the steel will shine like a mirror. You can find all grits of paper on ebay or check your local Home Depot or other similar store for coarse paper (up to 600) and auto parts store (PepBoys, Kragen, etc) for 1000-3000 paper. You can also buy a small buffing wheel that can be mounted on the electric drill and polishing compound at Sears or Home Depot. In this case you can skip 1000 and 2000 paper, but if you have visible scratches you will have to start with coarse sandpaper anyway, because most of the polishing compounds are too fine to remove those scratches.

[Paul]

Yep descaling is in order. While browsing the HOW-TOS I didn't see a definitive guide. I'd like to read up on how strong to make the citric acid solution, guides to how long to leave it, heated solution vs cold, etc.

The following works for me. Others might have different preferences.

Make sure parts are free from grease and oil by cleaning with a degreaser, I use an automotive one. Soak scaled parts in a 10% acid solution. Have the water as hot as possible, this greatly speeds things up. Leave parts until all scale has dissolved. This may take a week. Rotate large parts in the solution periodically to ensure even action. After this, rinse in clean water to remove acid residue. When dry, run your finger along the surfaces. If you get a chalky residue, repeat the process.

These days I use a heated ultrasonic bath to do the above. Small bits like valves can be brought back to new finish in under an hour. For things like boilers, I use a 55L plastic tub.

EDIT; well, aren't I late to the party I typed the above before reading the whole thread. Silly. Anywho, you are rocketing along. All the best for the most fun bit - turning on for the first time.

[mhoy]

SL: Sand paper I could do, but an electric buffer seems like a less work on something that is going to be a whole lot of work.

Paul: Thanks for the advice, I'm particularly happy to hear that leaving stuff in citric acid for a week is OK since I'm at day 6 already. The boiler is show is showing a lot of copper color now with patches of black. As to a degreaser, I'm relunctant to use an automotive one since I'll be drinking out of this thing. I've used Cafiza on the outsides of things but haven't really dipped things in it.

I may borrow my wife's ultrasonic cleaner for a bit and re-clean some of the pipes since I can't actually see inside them. However it's not a large cleaner so the larger pipes won't fit. Hmmm, probably perfect for the steam wand which I'll start on this weekend.

Mark

[shadowfax]

SL: Sand paper I could do, but an electric buffer seems like a less work on something that is going to be a whole lot of work.

2 words: orbital sander.... or alternately, belt sander. I like the orbitals best. They will save you a lot of time, but I think that, from what I have read about polishing stainless (never done that, only rough-sanded aluminum), you may want to use an orbital sander up to 1000 grit and then buff it the rest of the way. Of course, that is only if you have bad scratches. They are a serious pain to get out, I can imagine. They were on my old Mazzer Super Jolly (which was aluminum), and stainless is a good bit tougher than that, I would think.