Broken Mazzer body thread fix advice - Page 4

[claypriley]

Let's see if I can Upload now that I have resized the picture..... wow, what a learning process on the computer......I wish it was as easy as making a good espresso
If this works, this is a picture of Before..... I had only used a little triangle file to knock off the big bits......that is, what didn't come off in my finger....(when I originally ran my finger around the threads I got a nice metal splinter)

[claypriley]

I can't believe it, it worked after only about 100 tries!!! Way harder than making a good espresso.....
I tried to make it look better with the contrast, and what not..... anyway, the bad thread was the first peak, you can kind of see right where the flash is shining bright the peak looks a little flat and the groove is looking too wide......

[claypriley]

This is a shot of another part of the same thread that was broken about 180 degrees from the first bad part.

[claypriley]

Here is a picture of the AFTER: after I worked with the fine grinding and lapping compound going very slowly...... I turned the adjusting collar until I got to the broken thread and then went forward a little and back a little.....until I got through..... then I would clean out the threads of the compound and clean the threads of the adj. collar and then thread the adj collar to see how smooth it was, and then go onto find the next stiff section...... put just a tiny bit of G/L compound only right where the stiff part is, and repeat the process. You have to be careful, because the G/L compound will bind up in the threads making it hard to turn the adjustment collar, and giving a false idea of a bad thread, thus the cleaning in between using the compound.

[claypriley]

Last picture of the Adjustment Collar threaded all the way in. I know it will never ever have to be threaded this far, but I just wanted to make sure everything was good, so that once I re-paint the body I won't be messing around trying to get the Collar to thread in far enough to grind my beans into espresso. My feeling is that the lower threads in the body had never ever seen the collar threads....virgins..... because with the burr carriers and the burrs in place the space is occupied. Looking at my Super Jolley adjustment collar there is a gap of about 4 mm between the collar and the body, when I am adjusted to grind for espresso..... I think about 3 1/2 or 4 turns in. When the Major adjustment collar is threaded all the way in like in the picture, it is about 7 turns.....and change.

[claypriley]

I used some car polishing liquid along with the grinding/lapping compound to make a nice "lubricated" slurry while doing this slow operation. In the end, once I had gotten through the couple of buggered threads, I cleaned out the G/L compound and just used a little of the car polish liquid and ran the collar all the way down. This polished the threads and made them smoother..... I don't know if you can see, but my adjustment collar isn't drilled for the adjustment joy stick that most Mazzer collars seem to have. This collar is older maybe? I don't know...... I just knew that without the adjusting joystick, I wanted to have the collar adjust easily. I may drill and tap in a joystick if it is too hard to make fine adjustments for my early morning espressos......

For now though, I am totally psyched on this project..... While I was waiting to figure out how to up load the pictures (thanks everyone for being patient) I did manage to get everything out of the casing..... so now I am going to go find a powdercoater in Reno who won't charge me too much to strip and powdercoat it. I may strip it down myself, but from reading the forums on this, it sounds like a few hours with my sander...... might be worth the money to have the pros strip it.... I will let you know..... I guess I will have to start another thread.....Mazzer Major Project.....

JohnB. thanks for the tip on the bearings, I remember from my bike mechanic days that most bearings come packed with fish oil..... I found a lot of places online to get bearings..... mostly pretty inexpensive, i.e. $2.00-$4.00 each...... I did find some ceramic bearings that start at $69 and go on up to $138......so I don't think I will be splurging for those.....and besides, I don't want the burrs to spin any faster really....

Anyway, thanks everyone for all the advice and comments. Rogue leader out......

[JK]

If the pics I am looking at are the issue..
Two ways I woulg fix your problem..
1) Get a Dremel with a V grining wheel and grind the valleys only in problem area..
2) Get a curved 3 square jewelers file @ a place like MSC
http://www1.mscdirect.com/CGI/NNSRIT2?PMAKA=00675132