Hi Guys,

Starting taking apart my La Peppina for a deep cleaning and noticed the heating element looked a little different in shape than other 700w 110v Peppinas I've seen on the forum (Pics below). When disassembling, I noticed the the element actually looked like it was contacting the kettle and causing some oxidation in that spot, as well as the housing.
My concerns are that 1. The heating element is bad (I haven't tested if it works cause I don't have a plug) and 2. that the element contacting the sides of the machine will cause a short or extreme heating of those parts.

In any event, I'd like to remove the element to scrub everything up and possibly re position it so that it isn't touching the insides of the machine. Can anyone give me some pointers on removing this thing? Thanks for any help!

IMHO, your element is shot, even if it may work. When you see the wall perforated like they appear to be in your photos they are done. There are people who can rebuild some, others not. You'll have to ask around. If it were mine, I'd replace it.

As for bending it away from things, once they are used for a while things get very brittle.

If you want to test it, look for low ohms between the two terminals and an open from both terminals to the outer case. Caution...if the thing is dry it may test fine to ground, but when water is added, it may get into the cracks and short things out.

Yeah, that split open area usually spells doom for elements. Maybe Gabor in Hungary could rebuild the element for you though.

Here's another pic after a little steel brushing...



regardless, I think I'd still like to replace the element. Is this going to be as impossible a task as finding a portafilter for the La Peppina?

Contact Gabor , search here or Francesco site on element rebuild and you'll find his contact info. I don't have it handy.

It is very common to get rust around the base of the kettle. It looks like that rust fell onto the element. The element may very well be fine. So another question is how will you adequately repair the rust on the kettle?

The element appears to be split open in the lower right corner of the photo. I had a Cremina element with the same issue and it was toast. I would contact Gabor to see if he can help.

Looking at the pics, it appears the element is swollen, diameter does not look uniform for entire length. I ran into this with a couple of machines and had to replace the elements. What seems to happen is if the element develops a breach in the wall, sometimes miniscule, water intrudes and causes the insulation material inside to swell. There is no repair, only replacement.

Thanks for all the replies thus far, I appreciate everyone's words of wisdom!

A little update, my power cord came in the mail today. So with the machine currently disassembled I filled the boiler area (sans kettle) just enough to cover the elements but not spill into the center and thus all over the table. Both hands oven mitted, I held onto the grouphead and flipped the switch on the plug, in seconds the steam was rising and the whole assembly was getting pretty hot.

Crazy4 - There were only a couple small spots of rust around the bottom rim of the kettle, so I used Flitz and paper towel, followed by dawn soap and a nylon brush. I was thinking of using steel wool or sandpaper to really make sure I get all of the oxidation off then coat the bare edge in some hi-temp paint or something like that.