Hi,

I've been quietly reading all these restorations and have kept my eyes open for a project. I guess this is the closest I will get to a vintage lever. I came across this on feebay. It's a 1985 Brugnetti Aurora. I watched it and it didn't sell the first time. He re-listed it and towards the end of the sale, he lowered the price. I thought it was still a little high with shipping. I emailed him and didn't hear back. The listing ended without a bid. I emailed him and asked if he allowed local pickup, being that he was in So-Cal. Luckily he got back to me and long story short, I cut a deal with him and drove to pick it up. Now I'm the proud owner. As you can see it needs work and he listed it as not working saying it doesn't heat up. I plugged it in and to my surprise, it started heating up. The vacuum valve isn't sealing, which is my first clue that it needs to be descaled. It was able to come up to 1.5 bar pressure but didn't leave it on much longer with the vacuum valve hissing away. While I had it on, water comes out of the steam and hot water taps, but no water comes out when I lower the lever on both groups. That's my second clue. Parts will be on order and more than likely, I'll be restoring this from the ground up.

I was really surprised at the size of the groups and size of the machine. It's got a small footprint for having 2 groups.

Unfortunately, I don't have any room to do restore it right now, so if I do work on it, it'll take a long time. Or I'll wait until I move later this year and begin working on it then.

I did take out one of the levers to see if I can find out why no water comes out. It just looks like it's clogged with scale.

Here's a quick video I took showing the lever action and the water not coming out.

Oh, man, did you ever SCORE! Those are great machines. That looks completely workable. Joe and his son Carl Kitay at the Good Coffee Company in Seattle have one of these. I think it is aka Faema Termazona. They used to sell them and they know about them. They don't have a website (very old school) but are reachable here:

818 Post Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104
(206) 622-5602

Congratulations - what an amazing score!! I am jealous!

"Juanjo" restored a similar machine - Brugnetti Aurora restoration (check his YouTube videos of said machine).

DrGary, Thanks for your reply. If I need anything i'll definitely give them a call.
I found most of the parts here. http://www.cafeparts.com/listCategories ... goryID=748

Javier, thanks! I saw all his videos and searched all the posts here and on CoffeeGeek while I was watching the auction. Can't wait to get it going. Have some guys that did some chrome plating for a motorcycle. They do a good job. Will probably have the groups polished locally as well.

Ok, so I couldn't wait. I started tearing it down. I do have 2 questions. 1st, I believe in order to remove the piston, it's gotta be screwed off? Not 100% sure, but just bought a strap wrench, just in case. Second, has anyone seen a big boiler like this without a boiler plate? Seems weird, but I guess one less gasket to worry about. There's quite a bit of scale inside the boiler at the bottom, so I guess I'll try and shake as much as I can through the element hole, and let it soak in citric acid. Only problem I've ran into is the tube going from the pressure stat to the bottom connector of the sight glass. As I was loosening the nut, usually the nut turns and the tube remains unmoved, well there's so much scale that the tube turned with the nut twisting it. I did 1.5 turns before I realized it. Might have to replace it. Other than that, it's cool so far and I'm so happy that I have this project.

Nice looking Aurora you have there. I fixed up a single group a couple of years ago and I'm quite happy with it.
The broken sight glass is not a problem they are available.
The group mechanism looks to be in good condition with no rust on the spring.
If dismantling, the spring has to be compressed before the piston can be undone, please take care those springs store a lot of energy.
Being a HX design it's strange your not getting some water through the group, a silly question but was it connected to a water line, and you weren't relying on boiler pressure, the water should just flow through at mains pressure.
The whole group just comes off after removing the four bolts, with the HX inlet removed you should be able to see straight through the HX tube.

Many years ago another HB member, Hal had a Bugnetti. Berautiful machine !!!

I think the bolt on the top side of the group flange, where it bolts on, needs to be removed - you maye find some clogging inside. I do not recall well enough to remember if there is an orfice adjustment under the bolt to control water flow through the group.

Good luck- I have had more than a few shots via the Brugnetti at Good Coffee Company! What a joyous shop.

Thanks Ted. You are right, I didn't have the mains hooked up. Probably why water wasn't flowing.

Thanks Greg. I did some more work on it.

I was able to use a strap wrench to remove the springs. There wasn't much tension on them and they came off easily. Unfortunately, on of the springs was rusted.











The element is on tight. I'm going to try and find socket big enough and use an impact wrench to remove it.

A mod that is done here to the Aurora is to fit a Gaggia spring for more oomph. One end needs to be ground so it fits into the groove on the head, but I found it to be too long so I had it shortened the end closed and the spring retempered at a local spring works, It works fine.

Jessdog wrote:The element is on tight. I'm going to try and find socket big enough and use an impact wrench to remove it.

Have you tried using the stilsons to unscrew the element? I was able to use stilsons on my screwed element that had been in place since original in the 60's; however I did use a piece of rubber as a protector between the jaws of the stilsons and the nut of the element. It took a reasonable amount of force to overcome the locked-in thread, but once it did the element unscrewed easily. Even though I wasn't planning on re-using the original element (wrong voltage), I was able to remove it without any damage or marks.