Last year I serviced my morning home espresso machine. It's a 2-group lever Astoria machine that you helped me rebuild. I neglected it a bit this last year but it started with two brand new springs around June or July of 2015. One was zinc coated and the other stainless steel. Both sides have perfect chrome sleeves and both sides have perfect rubber gaskets. This damage is the result of the tiny tiny residual moisture that must remain on the sleeve after use. The rubber piston gaskets were still in good shape when I replaced them a few days ago. I even re-used the stainless spring. My test with the zinc coated spring is over and will never be repeated! It's all stainless steel now!

That's a marked difference!

Thanks for the photos....I would only use stainless springs anyway but it is really good to be able to see why that is a good move.

Interesting finding. 1 year is quite unacceptably short for these big babies!

Just curious, does the Astoria/CMA group head have this tiny vent hole in the back?




picture borrowed from Andyone on Kaffeenetz

samuellaw178 wrote:Just curious, does the Astoria/CMA group head have this tiny vent hole in the back?

It isn't in the same location but, yes, it does have a small vent hole.

Your stainless spring appears to have been from a better batch than mine.


Small cracks, spring overall not as straight nor as strong as it should be. After this I switched to zinc coated. I don't remember what they looked like recently when I pulled the piston out, except that they were straight and strong, which is all I care about.

These are Astoria Lever springs for a La Pavoni Bar 2L.