I have the 1969 europiccola. I'm in the middle of rebuilding the head. I got the OE tool for extracting the brass sleeve. The tool does not seems to fit! That is, if you look into the group, there are two shoulders in the big bell housing. Of course the tool slides easily into the first shoulder but the space between the housing and the brass sleeve seems a bit too small past the second shoulder and I cant get it to go. I saw Dr Gary describe his restoration of that beautiful red-based machine and mention that it was a "tight fit" to get he OE tool in there, but this seems impossible. I don't want to apply force with steel meeting brass and damage the thing. I'm afraid I've already been making coffee with it and am quite in love.

Suggestions?

Scott

I will follow up with photos soon.

Scott,

Someone else with that issue did a little grinding on the OE tool to get it to fit. When I used that tool on my early La Pavoni I had to hold it in the holes with one hand while inserting a screwdriver through the holes in the tool and tapping it with a mallet to get the sleeve to turn out counterclockwise. Maybe you can put a smartphone under the group and take a photo looking upward of the way the sleeve looks in the machine and of where the tool doesn't fit into the groove between the group bell and the shower screen.

Pics of the group head and tool. Hopefully you can see that starting at the bottom (top when it is upsidedown- welcome to the army) of the outer head housing, there is a shoulder. The tool fits nicely but not entirely snuggly between the housing and the extension of the brass sleeve at this level, maybe 1-2 mm of radial play. There is then another shoulder in the outer housing and after stepping though that and going up (down) 3-4 mm, you get, you get to the rim of the brass sleeve where you find the two holes you need to lock into to turn the sleeve. The OE tool does not seem to fit into this lowest level, leaving a rather large gap between the rim of the tool and the part of the prass sleeve I need to lock into.

OK, Hope this makes sense with the pics.

Scott

Okay, you're going to slap your forehead on this one. I don't think you've removed the portafilter gasket that encircles the shower screen. That's keeping you from getting at the brass sleeve.

I don't think so. I definitely removed a gasket, square profile. And it covered up the part of the brass sleeve that presents a horizontal face in an annulus several mm wide and at whose inner diameter you find the extension of the brass sleeve where the shower screen is housed. This annular face, if you will, is where you will find the two holes into which the posts on the OE tool should insert. You can see one of them in each of the two pictures I attached without the tool inserted. The gasket to which you refer should, I think, cover these holes, no? So I think I still have a problem. I wonder if the sleeve has been screwed in too far? Even the long posts that come with the OE tools will not engage the holes given the gap between the tool face and the annular face of the brass sleeve.



OK, sorry for the long description and thanks for the help.

Scott

In the 3rd and 4th photos, it sure looks like there is still a gasket of some sort in there. It appears to be somewhat turned into the edge of the group bell in a couple of spots, enough to expose the sleeve holes, but still there.

Thanks all. With Dr Gary's suggestion, I got very excited, thought he was right and am now, after poking around with picks, quite definitely convinced this is not remaining gasket but chrome plated brass as the rest of the outer housing is. I've made a quick drawing to illustrate what I think I'm seeing. This is meant to be a cut across a diameter, showing up to the central axis of the cylinder. The blue is meant to be chrome-plated brass and the red is brass-colored brass. Thi sis what I was trying to describe with the whole "two shoulders" thing.

This is from the perspective with the machine upside down.

Thanks again.

Scott

Yes, your drawing looks like what should be there. What is the turned black ring starting at 3 o'clock and appearing torqued until 5:30? It seems to go most of the way around, like a portafilter gasket that's wedged in crookedly, but it's hard to tell with this photo.



Maybe you can show us more close-up photos. The feature I pointed to looks very much like a gasket that's partly torqued away from the hole but partly covering things too. Sometimes people put a shimming gasket underneath and if the gasket is truly baked it could be very hard. Does your pick reveal shiny metal when you scratch at it? I was surprised when restoring my Conti Prestina that what looked like a stain on the metal was a rock hard baked o-ring firmly seated in a metal groove. It was as hard as Bakelite.

Another possibility, and I hope not, is the brass cylinder is cross threaded into the group, which makes the shower screen look canted.

OK, some more images. It's bit tough to photograph as the flash and the specular reflections tend to saturate the camera.

The "black" bits in the first series of photos are actually chrome, and yes, when scratched, the are brassy. That goes continuously all the way around. I like Dr Gary's theory that it was gasket because the old gasket came out like a rock, so it seemed plausible. Alas, I don't think so.

My working theory at this point is that either the second (upper in the normal orientation) brass/chrome ring is just a tiny bit smaller than the edge of the lower one (with the angled edge as per my drawing), or perhaps the whole cylinder is slightly out of round. This latter theory seems plausible as a cast brass piece that is them machined may have internal stresses that pull it out of round over four decades.

Anyway, I've tried hitting the OE tool with a rasp, but tat is clearly insufficient. I may ask the machine shop guys where I work to turn down the outer top 5mm of the tool an extra 1 mm. tomorrow. That seems like my best option.

I did try one other thing which would have seemed clever had it worked: I fired her up to temp to see if thermal expansion would do the trick. It didn't. Alack. Alas.

I am in the same situation and have the same exact problem. OE's advice to me (which I have not had time to follow) was to get some sand paper and work just a little width off the tool so that it will fit in the space. They said the tool was made from mild steel and so, relatively, soft. In my case, If you hold your old PF gasket against the tool you can see how much the tool is slightly thicker than the gasket and how much of the tool you will need to file off.

To be honest though, I am sorry I bought this machine as a project. What a PITA! Plus, I now realize that anytime I need to service the group I need to tear the PF gasket to do so. With the newer version the brass sleeve, you can pop off the gasket with the shower screen easily. That gasket is not cheap and normally lasts a very long time (if you don't need to tear it off to access the group).