Today, I hit the seemingly unattainable lever jackpot: the $80 craigslist Cremina:



As you can see, someone got creative (read: painted the backsplash black) at the last rebuild. The only thing I know about the machine is that the previous owners had it for six years and had it in storage for a while. They remodeled the kitchen and liked the looks of a Europiccola more than the Cremina in their new kitchen.



The badge is affixed in a somewhat unorthodox way - with glue that sticks to both the frame and the drip tray.



An oddity is that the boiler cap has a vacuum breaker - is this a newer style cap on a 67 machine?













The frame will obviously need a complete strip, seal, and powdercoat. The outer casing is in reasonably good shape - no reason to touch it as far as I can tell.

The lever moves up nicely but stutters a bit on the way down in a way that whispers "can you hear the water sliding past the seals?" Everything looks good enough (the worst is the rust on the frame - nothing the powder coater can't fix!), but I wouldn't want to start using the machine without a complete teardown and soak. I would have gone with an in-place descale of the boiler if the frame did not need a paint job, but the teardown never hurt anyone, right? (Except for all of OE's warnings about cracking the sight glass...)

Nice score! . The front panel looks to be original since it has the MAX MIN markings. Black matte frame is right for an '89 as is the vac breaker cap. Looks like some care will be in order to remove the rusted side frame screws...since you are planning to coat the frame some high heat on the side bolts would likely help.
Does the case have the big decal or the usual badge?
Looks like a fun job!

Thanks! I believe the case has the big badge glued on, but I'll post a picture this evening to be sure. I can't thank you enough for the great step-by-step guide posted on your site.

orphanespresso wrote:Looks like some care will be in order to remove the rusted side frame screws...since you are planning to coat the frame some high heat on the side bolts would likely help.

Damn... there are screws in that rust?! I didn't even think to look, but I figured that anything in better condition than my Elektra (pre-rebuild) would be a breeze. A quick look inside the boiler with my phone's LED flash showed little to no scale, but I'll send everything through the 1Tbsp/liter citric acid just for good measure (maybe that will take the dog smell out!).

Nice scoop!!! Wow, very decent condition.

peacecup wrote:Actually that looks like a complete lemon. I recommend you double-box it carefully, and send it immediately to the old cremina collection agency, c/o peacecup, Sweden. I understand they will refund the postage, and up to $100 to cover the purchase cost.

PC

The official rebuilders of Tucson, AZ are willing to give as much as $120... For this 'poor' neglected machine... $80 bucks!? OMG Parts alone are worth far more than that. WOW!
I believe the cap is a pre '80s type cap. But no matter what a deal on what looks to be a decent machine. If I would have caught it you would not have gotten it for $80... Great Buy!

I dove into the disassembly today and am extremely disappointed to find the boiler and everything around it in nearly perfect condition. Sure, there's a tiny bit of scale at the joints, but nothing was overtightened and no gaskets are dried out (so far). It's almost a pity to be striping everything down, but I can't leave the rust untouched. I will need a smaller set of hex wrenches (mine are in a Swiss army knife-style rotating hinge setup, but the ones I need are the simple elbow type) to remove the group, boiler, and frame-to-boiler screws, but otherwise everything is removed. And based on my searches, it sounds like the only way to deal with the power cord strain relief ferrule is trial and (ideally the avoidance of) error.

The seller must have thought that I was crazy with the number of times I asked to confirm the price - I was convinced that he had forgotten a zero in the post.

Two setbacks (so far):

1. The rusted screw in the frame just below where the safety valve is screwed in
2. The safety valve is very, very tightly screwed in

The reason 1 is a setback is my genius idea of using PB Blaster on the screw to loosen the rust around the head. Well, the rust loosened up alright, allowing me to cleanly strip away the rest of the socket of the screw. My allen tool now spins freely in the socket, so a screw extractor will have to be the next step.

As for 2, a hammer tapping on the end of a 12" crescent wrench hasn't done the trick, but that's probably because the boiler is moving with the wrench's force. I will reattach the other boiler to frame screw and try again.

orphanespresso wrote:some high heat on the side bolts would likely help

I should do more reading before I go stripping screws.

Crescent wrench??? A 17mm open end will cover the pressure valve, sight glass nuts, pstat tube nut, steam tube, and steam valve retention nut. 15 mm for the steam wand. Ace Hdwre sells separates. likely the best approach for the stripped bolt would be to use a fairly large bit to remove the head only to free the boiler, then heat the stub red hot if you can and use a small vice grip to turn the stub out...an extractor might cause more problems than it would solve. Good luck!