I won an auction for an '85 MCaL yesterday that is identical to my '84. TWINS! Woohoo. I have asked the seller to disassemble as much as he can before shipping to help avoid catastrophy during shipping. I gave him detailed instruction and he agreed to do as much as possible for me. I'm very excited to have a new project and more excited to have twins. Now what to do with the Pub?...

Pics to follow upon arrival for all us visually oriented types.

Congrads! Of the machines owned the MCaL is overall my favorite.
Curious if you know what the winning price ranges have been for functional machines. That is, machines that would require minimum restoration. '70s, '80s, '90s vintage?

narc wrote:Congrads! Of the machines owned the MCaL is overall my favorite.
Curious if you know what the winning price ranges have been for functional machines. That is, machines that would require minimum restoration. '70s, '80s, '90s vintage?

I'd say $400-600. with heating element working but some base plating corrosion, overall wear and needing overall gasket work and cleaning. $600-$1000, gets something better looking but still may need some gaskets and cleaning. Older machines may have the older pressurestat with the older bladder that is unavailable OEM but can be replaced somewhat successfully with an alternative homemade piece or can replace with newer pressurestat.

Keep in mind that you can have a brand new MCaL delivered to your door for under $1100.
http://www.espressocoffeeshop.com/store..._S1CO.html

the only main concern with older MC leva
is the grouphead spring
if is worn out the parts are no longer available
which will result in havin to replace the complete group ouch ouch
otherwise everything else is good to go

Thanks for the crongratses!. I meant to post Friday night but the red wine won the fight, and yesterday just had too many things going on. Also, in the past days while waiting for the Elektra's arrival I've also taken on a redo of a friend's Cimbali Micro (not to mention the 3G Rancilio in the garage that I started last weekend.) A different machine to say the least, that Micro is...I've gotten it disassembled but I'll save those details for a separate thread in a moment.

Back to the main subject, the Elektra arrived yesterday, and I was giddy! Box integrity looked good, and the seller said he double-boxed. And very well he did. After fishing out all the parts, here's what I found; a nice, dirty machine. I was both horrified and amazed at how skanky this machine was. I say was because I wasted not time in getting those parts into hot soapy water. The piston face and the grouphead were both just CAKED with oils. The previous owner must have had a serious addiction going on. Look for yourself.








Moving on to the boiler element, as I cracked the base open to get the element out, I was hearing this awful peel-away noise that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It almost sounded like it belonged to horror flick soundtrack. And to my amazement I saw a wrapping of teflon tape slowly revealing itself from within the boiler, but what was more amazing was that someone tried wrapping the old boiler gasket with it. Desperate times, desperate measures? Apparently. I've already cleaned and scrubbed the piston, screens, portafilter and grouphead. Though I can't separate the grouphead from the boiler yet. They seem well-fused together. And I soaked the boiler in a few rounds of delimer, but today I'm going to switch to citric acid to get through the several millimeters of scale on the walls. And I also want to get some polishing done. I know my '84 is no pretty thing and it shows signs of it's age, but this one has definitely been ridden hard, put away wet. Soaking wet...and it's not as bright as the '84. But no matter, I'm not going after picture perfection here.

Time to get busy.

#222

Congrats-
I've also got a Microcasa from ebay - good thing you asked the seller to pack things properly as often the steam wand portion gets bent at the boiler. I bought mine knowing that the wand was bent at the boiler but it still works.

I have yet to take mine down as much as you did - often wondered how that's done and looking fwd to your thread in doing that.

stefano65 wrote:the only main concern with older MC leva
is the grouphead spring
if is worn out the parts are no longer available
which will result in havin to replace the complete group ouch ouch
otherwise everything else is good to go

Stefano-
when you say "older" what determines this? I'm suspecting my grouphead spring may be "tired" as it seems to need a much rougher/coarser grind compared to my pump based HX Oscar.