Hello all,
First post. A couple of weeks back, I found the item below in a flea market here in France.

It's a 1960s Conti Princess, the wider model with the horizontal boiler, of which there seem to be fewer than the narrower version with the vertical boiler. The lady who sold it to me told me that her family went each summer season to the Atlantic coast, where her father sold coffee in a small seaside outlet, using this machine, along with ice cream, while his wife did paintings. One of her fondest childhood memories was the hissing and bubbling she heard while her father made the espressos. But it's been a long time since this princess hissed or bubbled. It's been a decorative element only, for the last 35 years in the lady's kitchen, where it had however been home to some mice, I discovered on removing the back. Plenty of handy nesting material available with the asbestos insulation.

The sale price was low, due, said the seller, to a missing spring, which had broken. I tried the lever, before buying, and felt a nice resistance from the piston seals. On getting it home, I dismantled the group to discover that, not only was there no spring, there was no piston either. The resistance I had felt was old sticky oil making the rod at the top of the group slide tightly in its sleeve. I was able to contact the seller, who was unaware of the missing piston but told me that at one point her husband had removed the broken spring to see if it could be repaired. She can't find the missing part.
I know parts for old Conti models are hard to come by but perhaps someone here has an idea about how I might tackle this problem.



Steve

I was in the same boat as you, with my Empress, missing the spring and piston. Paul Pratt came to my rescue.

1950's Era Conti Empress-New Project

Thanks for the reply Tom. I had already saved your project for reading but hadn't yet got into it. A lot of potentially useful stuff in there. I am not sure if the Princess group is the same as the Empress. Even if yes, it would appear they changed the piston design at least a couple of times. I am thinking of a post by Pascal where he talks of two different pistons he has seen, and handled it would seem. He sent the following image. In what way do they differ? Are they for the same bore? Is the length the same? That might influence the shot size. Do they take the same seals? That's a lot of questions for a neophyte like myself.The one on the left would be for the Princess. That's the one I guess should be aiming for, but others could fit perhaps, maybe even the two seal piston.

Steve

I have stock for a Faema piston. I don't remember if it fits or not on a Conti group. If so I can help you Steve.

Who knows ?

That's great Pascal. When you say stock, do you mean the stock (metal) from which to make a piston or do you have a Faema piston? My Lambro has the same cylinder bore as the Conti, - 50mm. The Conti rod has 25mm of what looks like 10M 1.5 thread. Would that fit what you have? Then there is the overall length of the piston to consider. So many questions. Sorry about that. Just after you posted the photo of those two pistons on kitt's Empress thread, channo came in, I think trying to explain the technical reasons for the differences between pistons but I couldn't understand. I'll PM him in French to see if he/or she (Andrea can be both) can help.

My everyday machine

Steve

I mean I have one piston in stock I can sell.

But I'm not sure if the group feeding holes will come at the right place between the two gaskets.