Thanks for the advice Doug, I will give the butane torch a go and see if I can at least weaken it a bit.
I have been picking away at it in front of the telly each night during the ad breaks. Its a pretty slow process but I think I'm getting there.

OK it was as easy as that!
I just used a butane torch to slowly heat the seals (lots of acrid smoke) The seals didnt really crumbled as I had hoped but the heat did make them release from the threads and I was able to wind them back out of the site glass holder threads with a small sharp screw driver.
Now on with the rest of the restoration!
Thanks a million everyone for all your help and advice.

Hi,
I'm currently rebuilding a real old Pavoni myself (have a thread on Coffeegeek with pics) and elected to skip the sight glass since it wasn't leaking. After reading this thread I may consider replacing the seals after all. Just wondering if you have the screw on type heating element, and if so what your experience was in removing it? I had a doozy of a time with mine! Any scale buildup in the boiler?

my machine was bought in pieces for a much more ambitious project. What I got was a badly abused machine missing everything south of the top brass ring on the boiler. Base, element, etc is all missing.
The boiler was very badly scaled and will need several more hours soaking in citric acid before its clean.
My current issue is that my machine has the original brass sleeve in the group head. so in order to remove it, i'm going to need to make a specialised tool to engage the two holes in the sleeve so it can be screwed out (hopefully) In my hurry to get the machine stripped down, i knocked the shower screen out of the sleeve. I am hoping once I remove the sleeve that I will be able to reinsert the screen and recrimp the brass to hold it in place. Not sure if anyone's had a go at doing that...
So sorry I cant help you with the element, I am yet to cross that bridge.

Aaron,
I've restored 3 or 4 La Pavoni's or La Cara's with the original screw out brass sleeve
I've seen various "tools" from a wooden board with 2 nails to a custom tool all work.

The method I use though is 2 hardened nail punches, put them in a vise so they line up with the holes in the brass sleeve and rotate the group head so the sleeve un-screws.

Another method is shown here

Sorry to hear you punched out the screen first though, I'm really not sure how you'd go getting that back on again - You might get lucky find it can just be pushed back into place from the piston side

Anthony

Well even thought the screen came out, there seems to be no damage to the brass sleeve. There was lots of gunk in the retaining groove in the sleeve and I am hoping that I will be able to put the screen back in and carefully heat up the brass and crimp it back over so the screen is fixed in position again.

Thanks for the advice about removing the sleeve, I will give your method a go. Its frozen in there pretty good though. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have my work cut out for me. The other problem is that my machine is not bolted to the boiler like later models, the group is threaded and screws directly onto the boiler. I have already tried to remove it and there is absolutely no way I can make it budge. So what ever I have to do to remove the brass sleeve its going to have to be with the boiler still attached.

Aaron,
You might have a look through this thread Replacing gaskets for Europiccola from early 60's - I believe the OP had an older style La Pavoni as yourself
Good Luck..it is worth the effort
Anthony

Well I managed to get the brass sleeve out over the weekend using the two punches in the vice method.
The sleeve is now de-scaled and awaiting the delivery of the rest of the parts for reassembly.
I am attempting to reinsert the shower screen. Not too sure how I'll go, but its worth a try as the sleeve was not damaged by the removal of the screen.