I recently acquired an used 'La Spaziale Top', which is what I believe a rebranded Macap MXA.

Because it's quite an old commercial model and been used a lot too, I need to work it a bit to get a good home grinder.

On my wishlist:
1**-Apply tape to the doser-sweepers, I've found it does not clean the doser good enough just yet.
2**-Remove the autofill system.
3**-Remove scratches and rusty spots from the surface.

I've browsed through HB, and found a load of stepless mod topics, and a lot of posts of people posting that they had removed the autofill and added the doser-sweepers, but no how-to.

The Grinder (of course there's an hopper and doser-cap, and that piece of aluminium shouldnt be there either!:



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1** -Apply tape to the doser-sweepers
I've actually done this before on a FAEMA MPN, but the dosers dont quite disassemble the same. Perhaps I could be guided through this. I understood that the little plastic cap in the doser can be removed, and next step is removing the screw-blocking thing as circled here:



But the next step is not clear to me, I cant push, pull or turn anything - at least, it doesnt appear to me what to do:

(By the way, anybody know what the little metal thing pointed to by the green arrow is?)

or from another position:


How to continue with removing the doser-insides from here? Or is this doser comparable to any other brand (like Mazzer)? If so, just mention which brand and I might be able to find more posts on it..
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2**-Remove the autofill system.
I've done this with my FAEMA as well, both autofill systems look quite like another, but there is one significant difference: I could just move the autofill system from the doser to the insides of the grinder body, which is easily opened on the FAEMA.

The Autofill system (with the chute-guard already removed):


Both wires need to be connected to the system like this in order for the engine to start, if one wire is inserted into the third, free slot, the engine only starts when the red button is pressed. In my ideal world I'd just remove the wires, but I can not because then the engine wouldnt start. What would you suggest me to do?

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3**-Remove scratches and rusty spots from the surface.
My last question is purely cosmetic. I like the grinder's looks because of the brass layer, it does have some scratches and rusty spots though, like in the following picture or the first picture of this post where the front-tamper used to be... I was wondering if this can be taken care of?


Have a nice day/evening and thank you for your input.

Hoenen wrote:Both wires need to be connected to the system like this in order for the engine to start, if one wire is inserted into the third, free slot, the engine only starts when the red button is pressed. In my ideal world I'd just remove the wires, but I can not because then the engine wouldnt start. What would you suggest me to do?

The auto start wires are connected to a terminal block accessible from the bottom of the grinder.

UNPLUG the grinder. Remove the bottom and pull on the auto start in the doser wires to identify them. Once identified, cut the connectors AT THE DOSER end and push them back into the grinder. Pull the wires out the bottom. Remove the easiest one from the terminal block. Cut the other wire to length and insert in removed terminal.

Fill the holes in the doser body with some clear silicone or other sealant to keep grinds out of the motor.

Looks to be a MXA grinder.
http://www.espressoparts.co.uk/macap.asp?img=223 <-- exploded view of the doser.

cafeIKE wrote:The auto start wires are connected to a terminal block accessible from the bottom of the grinder.

UNPLUG the grinder. Remove the bottom and pull on the auto start in the doser wires to identify them. Once identified, cut the connectors AT THE DOSER end and push them back into the grinder. Pull the wires out the bottom. Remove the easiest one from the terminal block. Cut the other wire to length and insert in removed terminal.

Thanks for the input, I'll try this out tomorrow morning (23:44 right now, heading to bed.. )

Fill the holes in the doser body with some clear silicone or other sealant to keep grinds out of the motor.

I think my FAEMA MPN started leaking electricity because of that once, so yeah, good tip

Bluecold wrote:Looks to be a MXA grinder.
http://www.espressoparts.co.uk/macap.asp?img=223 <-- exploded view of the doser.

Hey Bluecold, You're right, I checked the label and it does say type: MXA. Thanks for clearing that up!

cafeIKE wrote:The auto start wires are connected to a terminal block accessible from the bottom of the grinder.

UNPLUG the grinder. Remove the bottom and pull on the auto start in the doser wires to identify them. Once identified, cut the connectors AT THE DOSER end and push them back into the grinder. Pull the wires out the bottom. Remove the easiest one from the terminal block. Cut the other wire to length and insert in removed terminal.

Fill the holes in the doser body with some clear silicone or other sealant to keep grinds out of the motor.

Done this successfully! Wires are gone and the machine still starts, thanks for the help!

Will work on the doser now...

Managed to take off the clear part of the doser and the parts on top of the swiper (and cleaned those thoroughly), but I cant take the main bottom sweeper out, part n.702850 here: http://www.espressoparts.co.uk/macap.asp?img=223 ... Should I take the whole doser-cabin out in order to reach the small pin below to it? If so, can the doser-cabin be removed without unscrewing the bolt that is positioned inside the main grinder body? Dont have the right tool to do that right now. Maybe only the bottom of the doser cabin can be removed?

I found that removing the 'skeleton' of the doser-vanes wasnt needed (I remembered cause I never did it with my FAEMA either). Applied Velcro, some vanes with the soft part some with the rough part. I also put small pieces of Velcro on the ends of the vanes as I saw that the ends did not touch the doser-wall close enough (as you can see here).

The result is a very clean doser, and a grinder which is now in use!

I like that the Macap does not produce the static grinds my FAEMA did (or the clumping my rocky does), with the FAEMA the coffee was always covering all the doser walls and the grinds would just float over my portafilter... not anymore

The only thing I wish now is to remove/undo the scratches and small pieces or rust, the brass is just so gorgeous to look at.

Will post pictures of the work in a bit for future macap users.

Cleaned the machine using copper polish, added doser swipe mod:

OLD:




NEW HOUSING:





NEW DOSER SWEEP:






OLD DOSER LEFT OVERS:



NEW DOSER LEFT OVERS:

Without brushing: