This fall I refurbed by Cremina 67 thanks to Steve's epic refurb posting a couple of years ago. This series of posts is an attempt to provide a little payback to the HB and LMWDP folks, who made the process so much easier by contributing to that thread.

And, I have to admit, it is the most fun I have had in a long time. I am itching to get another machine apart and have a go at a rebuild. So, a couple of weeks ago I rescued a Riviera from the nether regions of ebay and made some plans.

I found out that these Rivieras come up now and then on ebay -- I've seen maybe six go by in a month or two of watching, and so I supposed there may be some folks out there who need to re-build every now and then, and maybe this would come in handy. I know orphanespresso offers a rebuild service, so there is always someone to go to if I take this one way off the rails.

But enough with the throat-clearing. Ahead to the refurb. When I got the machine out of the packaging (it came from a friendly e-bayer in Denver who was reasonable with the shipping), this is what we were facing.




Can't judge a book by its cover, although there has clearly been a leak somewhere, you can see the oxidization patterns around the back of the boiler casing. I was also struck immediately by the size of the portafilter -- it looks relatively small, although I am so new to these machines I'm not sure if that is significant. I'll get to those kinds of worries at the end of the rebuild. However, the handles were in good shape and there were no obvious flaws in the portafilter or basket.

The casing had a slight dent on one side where the power cord enters the casing -- I don't have a show of that handy, but it seemed that I could make a decent job of straightening it when I had it disassembled.

So with that cursory overview of the look of the machine I got straight to popping the casing so I can see what's going on underneath. Here's what I saw, a pleasant surprise and a couple of odd items.



I don't know if you can see it but the pressurestat looks much newer than the rest of the machine. Looks like someone has been under the hood here doing a little fixing up, maybe to keep this machine in some kind of working order, or to sell it. I will ask the seller if she knows the history. When I get the pressurestat out I'll post some pictures of it, I'm not even sure if it is a Riviera part, likely not, I'd think.

I can also see that I'm going to need a special tool for this boiler -- it looks screwed together right now with a very large nut fixed to a threaded segment of the lower boiler, and the heating unit screwed into the same segment. I can't tell yet. I'll check out some other sites with rebuild information on these boilers.



So, before I wander off to do that, some basic pics of the set-up of the machine. From the top, this one.



And a close-up of the pressurestat.



I'll post some of the next take-down steps next. Meanwhile, I'm gonna go off and order a complete set of gaskets from Orphanespresso. They may have a boiler tool there as well.

It has the original style pstat, and what a nice view of the wiring layout...always good to have a reference as there are generally a lot of creative wiring of these things. Different portafilters were used and this one is one of the variants, seems to have something to do with the brass finish models. Is there any mention anywhere of Faema New York, as we have one identical to yours, with that type of portafilter. I was admiring the seemingly perfectly intact label on the boiler cap, quite rare that touch. A little elbow grease and you're there! Nicely grungy looking project....lots of potential.

Thanks for the info on the pstat Doug. Useful to know. Are those parts still being made? I assume so -- it is much better condition than the rest of the parts underneath the hood. I got a lot of the take-down done last night and I'll post the process soon.

That safety valve looks a lot like the one in my PVL:

Ignatius Riley wrote:That pstat looks a lot like the one in my PVL:
<image>

Minor correction... that's a safety pressure relief valve, not a pressurestat.

Thanks for the correction, I edited the posting.

(it's almost 4 am here, time to get some sleep... )

Back to the Riviera refurb. After the inspection yesterday I started to take the machine apart and take stock of the parts I was going to need. For starters, I ordered a full set of gaskets and seals from Doug at orphanespresso, figuring I was going to need most or all of them, and the cost is pretty reasonable.

So, first thing was to disassemble the steam wand assembly, which sticks out at an awkward angle and makes it more difficult to manipulate the machine. The assembly looks pretty standard. Here is a pic of the wand and the nuts that fix it into the steam wand valve.



The two main gaskets to replace here are a rubber o-ring about the centre of the valve and another round gasket about a centimetre across and 75 mm deep that is fixed into the end of the valve with a screw. These measurements are just estimates, I'll get the right ones up when I order the parts. This value abuts the part of the valve assembly leading into the boiler. They look like pretty standard parts.

Next, I decided to strip off some of the other parts outside the boiler, so I took off the pressure gauge. This gauge looks like it may have been damaged, the face plate is bent on the outer edge such that the needly could probably not pass 90 degrees (less than one bar on the meter), so the gauge itself could be toast. Sorry for the bad focus on the pics, I'm using my camera phone while holding parts, but they should give you an idea.

I managed to disassemble the gauge itself (I'll post some pics next time) and found that the mechanism itself is fixed to the casing with two screws on the back. The front plastic cover is held on by a metal ring that snaps onto the casing. With a little lubricant and some careful use of an exacto knife, you can slip the front metal ring off, remove the plastic face plate, remove the brass bolt holding the casing on the bottom, and slip the gauge itself out of the casing, being careful not to put pressure on the mechanics of the gauge itself. When I post some pics it will make clear the elements of the gauge, it has an elegant little mechanism. But I turned to fixing the gauge once I had the rest of the machine stripped.



I then removed the pressure relief valve from the top, which was stuck on pretty well. I then removed the sight glass, brass casing and bolts, and gaskets for same from the side of the boiler assembly. To work the sight glass out, you need to remove the steam gauge, remove the seals under it, and in my case they were solid as a rock, and then unscrew the to and bottom bolts of the brass casing around sight glass piping. Once those are unscrewed, there is some give in the sight glass up and down, and you can shimmy it up through the opening the steam gauge normally sits in. Then you can clean out the gaskets and detritus.

Mine were not in good shape, and the sight glass had a long crack at the top which had been hidden by the metal casing and bolts. So, new sight glass from orphan espresso coming up. The gaskets are important here, because there are actually four to be aware of, two in the bottom of the sight glass casing and two in the top. The way they work is that one is smaller and flatter and lies in the bottom of the sight glass assembly, and on top of it lies the fatter gasket. When the sight glass is pressed into the fatter gasket, it eventually hits the bottom seal. These gaskets, when pressed down by the brass bolt holding the brass casing, push down on the fatter gasket, forcing it to pinch the sight glass and push out to the outer casing. This effectively holds the glass when compressed. Together, it seems that they form a base-and-sides for the glass tube when inserted, so that no part of the glass tube touches the metal.

The same assembly is used for the top of the sight glass, but upside down, if you see what I mean.

In addition, the top of the sight glass assembly (the part sitting under the pressure gauge, but atop of the sight glass) has another gasket inserted from the top that sits between the top of the metal assembly and the bottom of the pressure gauge. This one was fully ossified in my machine, and had to be chipped out with a pick and needle-nose pliers. Be careful when doing this, I'm not totally sure it was not my chipping (with a dental pick) that didn't crack the sight glass itself.

As an aside, rather than actual needle-nose pliers, I actually use medical forceps and clamps, as well as dental pics and instruments for prying into difficult holes. I'll try to post some pics of these next time. I used to help out a small group of doctors sending these instruments to developing countries, where this kind of equipment is expensive, but is just tossed out here. Amazing waste, actually. But you can actually get these pretty easily, because hospitals actually toss these out. If you know someone working there, you can have them set a few aside (washed, of course) and you can bleach and auto-clave/steam them at home just to be super-cautious. They work like magic, sort of a cross between clamps, pliers and tweezers, and can get into the most cramped spaces and delicately pull out rubber or t-tape or whatever it is that you need to operate on.

So, with the sight glass off, the top pressure value off, the steam gauge off, the steam wand off, the next step was to get the group head off to make it easier to set the machine on its side and get underneath it. The group held is held by four nuts which came off pretty easily. The group itself did not though, and the flat gasket seemed to have fused it pretty well. I have to resist the temptation to just grab a flathead and start prying, so I gave it a quick soak with lubricant and make a cup of coffee. By the time I get back, I'm in the mood to just work it gently back and forth until the seal gives a little, and it pops off. Here's what was underneath.



Looks like the seal worked well and you can see the brass underneath, a glimmer of hope.

The group itself was in pretty good shape too. The intake pipe is, as you would expect, pretty caked.



But the disassembly of the group is a little tricky. In my case, the dispersion screen came off easily, so I could avoid damaging it. My Riviera has a spring loaded piston, and there is pretty decent force behind the spring. To get the piston out, you have to pop the c-clips, and then find a way to apply some pressure to the piston in the group head without damaging it. In my case, a short fat piece of dowel wrapped in a cloth on the workbench, while I pushed down on the grouphead did the trick. It gave enough slack in the lever so that I could use a small rubber mallet to tap out the pins holding the lever to the top of the group.

Here is a pic of the group bottom before the piston gets popped out.



Once the pins were out, the spring pops the piston down out the group and it is pretty straightforward to disassemble. The surprising thing about this piston assembly is that there only three gaskets on the piston itself, no gasket on the shaft leading through the group.





The spring and other parts in the piston assembly look like this.



And the inside of the group with the piston out look like this.



All in all, the assembly is in pretty good shape, but it has some serious grunge on it, and the inside of the group is scaled up. I'm not certain how I'm going to clean that out yet. First a good wash in soap and water and then metal polish, probably. There is so much brass here to clean through it'll probably be worth investigating some brass cleaning options.

I also noticed something interesting about the lip of the cylinder in the group. It has a slightly flared edge on the side nearest the machine itself, on the bottom/leftish side of the picture above. At first I thought the group was tampered with, someone trying to squeeze the dispersion screen or something, but it looks symmetrical enough to be part of the design. I'm not sure why that flare is there, but I'll ask around.

You can also see that the top of the group does not have a gasket or seal for the piston rod. Simple but needs lubricating.

The gaskets themselves look in rough shape, but I'll turn to cleaning the group and piston at the next stage, and do a little more research into the way this group mechanism works and how it relates to pulling a decent shot.

Last task before stopping to take stock and order parts, etc., is to get underneath this puppy and get at the wiring and boiler. Learning from past mistakes, I decided this time to do the full effort to get the wiring photographed, marked and diagrammed. I have created a wiring diagram for this scheme (picture below) if anyone wants it, I'll photograph it or write it out for you. It's not hard at all when you have a diagram, and it's a nightmare when you don't.



With the diagram in place, I took the wiring out and began to detach the piping underneath the boiler. Stripped of wiring, it is a lot simpler to work with.

So the pipe connecting the boiler to the pressure stat unscrews fairly easily. The pipe connecting the boiler to the external water source is a little more complex. Advice around the inter-tubes on Rivieras is that this water feed should not be used if possible. The assembly is interesting, and this one was a bit tricky to take apart. When it finally did, out came some pretty stale and milky-looking water. But you can see that there is a cap over a spring that fits on to the intake assembly. On the other side of the assembly, where it comes out the top of the casing (just to the right of the boiler as you look at it from the top) is a button over a brass fitting which presumably opens and closes this water input. Mine doesn't seem to have any action to it at all, so I'm not quite sure how this on/off system works. when I clean and re-assemble, it may be clearer how the mechanism works. In this case, this machine will go to a friend as a present for sending me to Italy on his airmile points, and he will likely not use this feed, so I may work it to close it only. Although, no, the purist in me suggests I get the bloody thing working and let him decide. Anyway, for now, here is the way the assembly looks, and aside from seals and gaskets, I don't think I'll need any new parts, if I can only figure out how it works.







And, that's about it for now. The next steps in this rebuild are to get the boiler tool from orphanespresso or a local hardware store, and source some of the gaskets that don't come in the complete gasket set from Doug.

There is also quite a bit of brass to begin polishing up, and a dent in the casing to hammer out. If anyone has brass polish advice, now's the time, because I'm facing a lot of evenings watching football with some piece of this machine and greasy hands.

I'm also gonna take a run at the pressure gauge and see what can be done about it, although I'm pretty wary of using it again. I'm going to see if there are ways I can test it. Lastly, because I'll soon be in a waiting phase, I may turn to pimping it up just a little with new lever and porta-filter handles. There seems to be quite a following on LMDWPers into the custom wood handles, and who am I to buck that trend. Particularly appealing to me are the Gaggia ribbed handles on some of their machines, which look like they could be turned without excessive difficulty. Suggestions for sourcing those would be really appreciated too.

orphanespresso wrote:It has the original style pstat, and what a nice view of the wiring layout...always good to have a reference as there are generally a lot of creative wiring of these things. Different portafilters were used and this one is one of the variants, seems to have something to do with the brass finish models. Is there any mention anywhere of Faema New York, as we have one identical to yours, with that type of portafilter. I was admiring the seemingly perfectly intact label on the boiler cap, quite rare that touch. A little elbow grease and you're there! Nicely grungy looking project....lots of potential.

Thanks Doug, and thanks for the prompt reply with parts. No mention in the machine of faema ny, not even a serial number that I could identify. Where to look for specifying marks?

Holy Moly! You can tell it's getting on winter there in Canada and you have taken on a project....with a lot of enthusiasm as well! Just a couple of things.....that double seal setup in the sight glass is likely an artifact of someone tryng to make the right height with a couple of seals instead of just one....we've done 4 Rivieras and they all had one seal in the sight glass sockets. The gauge just has the needle tweaked, or needs some lube somewhere.....if you study the curved brass anaeroid bladder on the back of the gauge and the little swivels and levers that look like the bones in a human ear..... well. with some bracing of one part and tweaking of another you can get the needle to zero.....then you check the pressure with an independent test gauge and if you have enough patience can continue flexing and bending the needle to read correctly.....or you can put a Pavoni or EleKtra new gauge on it, same thread size, and you can get Elektra in brass.....actually all of these gauges are made indentically so you can take off the Riviera face plate and transplant it to a new gauge if it comes to that.
The group to boiler gauge....we have seen two kinds, one is standard composite paper like an auto water pump gasket and the other is white teflon....certain good sense here but a bit difficult to manufacture the teflon......the composite one comes with our kit and it is reasonable but does not give that warm and fuzzy feeling of a thermal break like the teflon one does. We can make the teflon but it is a bit laborious and the material is spendy. Once you get the boiler off you will need some more custom gaskets....we have the one for the boiler seal but the boiler to base gaskets will have to be made.....they generally use a hard once again water pump type composite gasket to keep the boiler in place against the base (one on each side of the base plate)....but it is becoming my opinion that these should be rubber, as they would hold much better and not get that boiler swivel when the portafilter is locked in.
The spring looks good and is not rusted.......
One point of warning.....don't drop the whole group in a tub of citric acid as this will really bugger around with the brass, although soaking it in Joe Glo to get all of the coffee oils out of the bell and possibly the cylinder is not problem, at least from my experience. I would recommend manual descaling since the outside of the machine is going to be a metal finishers worst nightmare and if you soak the whole group in citric the outside will go orange and then be much brighter than the boiler after you metal polish the whole thing.
Another point of warning....it looks like the seals are all pretty hard and you are the first one in to this machine.....be extra careful when attempting to remove the bibb washer from the end of the steam faucet valve....if you bugger that little screw that holds it in you will be toast on that issue......so, take the o ring off the valve shaft (it should be silicone and orange by the way) and light up your propane torch and simply burn the washer out of the end....let it burn and get all sooty and the waasher will become dry and crumbly and you can pick it out with one of your hospital freebies (lucky you) and the heat will shock the brass screw and enable you to get it out really easily and safely.....don't burn yourself too much since I see you already have used up about a half box of bandaids already.
One last thing.....when you are assembling your machine, inserting the sight glass or tightening down the boiler to base rubbers, a very good and economical assembly lubricant is, well, personal lubricant....water soluable and cheaper and easier to get than mineral oil.....we use astroglide (blush).

IR wrote

(it's almost 4 am here, time to get some sleep... )

I see you're suffering from PV fever. Symptoms include sore arm (too many lever pulls), noticeable limp (as the kroners leave the wallet for more coffee beans), and insomnia (too much caffeine).

PC

Doug, thanks so much for the tips. I really appreciate it. Here are some more, in case you have time.

orphanespresso wrote:Holy Moly! You can tell it's getting on winter there in Canada and you have taken on a project....with a lot of enthusiasm as well! Just a couple of things.....that double seal setup in the sight glass is likely an artifact of someone tryng to make the right height with a couple of seals instead of just one....we've done 4 Rivieras and they all had one seal in the sight glass sockets.

Sounds good, have you noticed the bottom of the socket, it has two recessed areas, one inside the other, that looks like it could take a smaller inner seal, say 25mm wide and 5mm or less deep - quite a small seal/gasket. It could be where the glass sits, or it could just be a recess, I dunno. I'll post a pic below.

orphanespresso wrote:The gauge just has the needle tweaked, or needs some lube somewhere.....if you study the curved brass aneroid bladder on the back of the gauge and the little swivels and levers that look like the bones in a human ear..... well. with some bracing of one part and tweaking of another you can get the needle to zero.....then you check the pressure with an independent test gauge and if you have enough patience can continue flexing and bending the needle to read correctly.....or you can put a Pavoni or EleKtra new gauge on it, same thread size, and you can get Elektra in brass.....actually all of these gauges are made identically so you can take off the Riviera face plate and transplant it to a new gauge if it comes to that.

I got the gauge open and cleaned. I'll post some pics below. I have yet to test it against another gauge (I ordered one from omega.com, which can source these from Laval, Quebec in Canada for about $15, they are up to 3 psi or just over 2 bar) but I'm optimistic it will work. The faceplate was bent (goodness knows what happened) but otherwise it was untouched inside. I may test it on my Cremina and post some results. I plan at the end of this refurb to generate a chart of shot/temp pressure for reference, so will get something worked up for it.

orphanespresso wrote:The group to boiler gauge....we have seen two kinds, one is standard composite paper like an auto water pump gasket and the other is white teflon....certain good sense here but a bit difficult to manufacture the teflon......the composite one comes with our kit and it is reasonable but does not give that warm and fuzzy feeling of a thermal break like the teflon one does. We can make the teflon but it is a bit laborious and the material is spendy. Once you get the boiler off you will need some more custom gaskets....we have the one for the boiler seal but the boiler to base gaskets will have to be made.....they generally use a hard once again water pump type composite gasket to keep the boiler in place against the base (one on each side of the base plate)....but it is becoming my opinion that these should be rubber, as they would hold much better and not get that boiler swivel when the portafilter is locked in.

Yes, I decided to order the removal tool from you and Barb, but already I can see that there are some shredded parts of the other seals you are referring to. I'll have to source some of those gaskets. The main boiler gasket is composite not teflon, I think. However, the rest of the specialty gaskets have been white teflon (this may have also been an influence on the white goop that came out of the water intake I referred to. When I get it right open, I'll list the specialty parts required.

orphanespresso wrote:The spring looks good and is not rusted.......
One point of warning.....don't drop the whole group in a tub of citric acid as this will really bugger around with the brass, although soaking it in Joe Glo to get all of the coffee oils out of the bell and possibly the cylinder is not problem, at least from my experience. I would recommend manual descaling since the outside of the machine is going to be a metal finishers worst nightmare and if you soak the whole group in citric the outside will go orange and then be much brighter than the boiler after you metal polish the whole thing.

That's really useful. I was mooting some mass processing solutions to the scaling and polishing issues. I'm of a mind (prior to opening it) to take a circular brass brush on my drill to deal with the boiler, but the external boiler and the rest of the casing is going to kill me, I can tell. It's pure bling when done, but what a road to get there. Classic case of my eyes being bigger than my forearms.

Another point of warning....it looks like the seals are all pretty hard and you are the first one in to this machine.....be extra careful when attempting to remove the bibb washer from the end of the steam faucet valve....if you bugger that little screw that holds it in you will be toast on that issue......so, take the o ring off the valve shaft (it should be silicone and orange by the way) and light up your propane torch and simply burn the washer out of the end....let it burn and get all sooty and the washer will become dry and crumbly and you can pick it out with one of your hospital freebies (lucky you) and the heat will shock the brass screw and enable you to get it out really easily and safely.....don't burn yourself too much since I see you already have used up about a half box of bandaids already.[/quote]

Nice jab about the bandaids -- yes, too true, too true. You should have seen my Cremina rebuild. I had a feeling about the bibb ring -- glad to know the proper name now -- actually learned from my same experience on the Cremina. The torch solution has an appealing carpet-bombing feel to it, may try that just to fire up the blowtorch.

orphanespresso wrote:One last thing.....when you are assembling your machine, inserting the sight glass or tightening down the boiler to base rubbers, a very good and economical assembly lubricant is, well, personal lubricant....water soluble and cheaper and easier to get than mineral oil.....we use astroglide (blush).

Doug! I may faint! The GF is already giving me the business about the amount of time I spend on the refurb and then crawl into bed smelling like brass polish and WD40. If I add lube to the list, I may be served with divorce papers. But by-the-by, when I asked about "food-equipment-friendly lubricants" at the local Homer Hardware, the old boy got a huge smile on his face and said to me "Oh, you mean EDIBLE OILS. Aisle 8."

A couple of days into this rebuild, I'm in a holding phase while I wait for the tool to open the boiler. Doug and orphanespresso has been great sending tips and a gasket set, so we're just waiting to shine the pieces up and do the de-scaling and cleaning in the boiler, and I can begin envisioning the rebuild. Then I'll turn to the group and some of the issues it raises for the rebuild.

Meanwhile, I dealt with the steam gauge. You may recall that the face-plate was bent out of shape such that it did not permit the needle to rise around the face plate properly. So I dissembled the gauge and here is what you see.







As you can see, as Doug said, the inside mechanism is a little like what you think of when you think about an inner ear. The mechanism was surprisingly resiliant, I'd say, from handling it. I managed to bend the face plate back to an acceptable angle and with gentle pressure move the needle around the spectrum easily. The needle zeroes out at, well, zero. I've now re-assembled and polished it up, and am ready to re-test. I ordered a second gauge from omega.com (they make a series of standard gauges for these relatively low pressures, and they ship them out of Laval Quebec for about $15-20). I'll benchmark the Riviera gauge as best I can on my Cremina. I'll probably have to buy some adapters but I reckon I can get it work.

Another question that Doug raised was the one-or-two gasket issue in the bottom (and top) of the sight glass receptacle. I found two separate gasket/seals when I took it down, but Doug's experience is that there is only one. Here is a pic of the receptacle, which shows the inner recess where the second seal was placed. Suggestions, experiences, comments or queries, anyone? Is the sight glass meant to actually sit in this recess?

Ignatius Riley wrote:That safety valve looks a lot like the one in my PVL:
<image>

Ignatius, any idea where to get one of those valves? And, second, have you ever taken it apart? Mine is really solidly sealed up, I'm still waiting to get it open and clean it. Suggestions/experience?

Thanks, SA

Simon,
Soon you're going to have to stop taking pics with your iphone and use a camera.
The iphone won't do justice to your refurb as it comes together.
Drop a line if you're around this weekend, we should swing by the green beanery.
Caffeinatedly yours,
-GB.

Simon.....good to see the thumb has healed. the sight glass socket is a bit of a mystery but I'm betting that this has something to do with using a glass tube that was not to specs for the socket since that looks like a bushing in there. Could have been a supplier change or something at Zacconi so they punted.
You can rig up a pretty good testing gauge with the Omega by fitting a barbed brass nipple on the thread (it is likely 1/4" npt, sorry no metric here as good old American plumbing is the universal tongue in these areas) and the Riviera gauge is 1/8" npt , but you can get a couple of brass barb fittings in these two sizes and a short bit of rubber hose and use the gauge in this fashion to test pressure from the steam wand....you don't even need a hose clamp if you use a small enough diameter hose, just a bit of good lube. I'm sure that Homer down at the hardward can point you in the right direction for the nipples, as he seems pretty tuned in.

So, after a week or so, I've had a couple of hours tonight to get back to the Riviera refurb. Got up early this morning to get to a meeting in Montreal, got back early enough to make time to do a bit of work while wathcing the news. There is some small drama happening in the government here.

Where I left off, last item was to order a new sight glass and a tool for the boiler. Got that done quickly thanks to Doug at orphanespresso, thanks Doug.

Without further adieu, I got down to the final part of the take-down. The heating element was stuck on pretty good. Some kind of tape or goop had it sealed in nicely, and the electrical pins made manipulating it difficult. A little grease and some patience finally got it off, but with some damage to the electrical pins. Problem number one to address. Fixing those pins, assuming the element can be saved.



The element itself looks like this. (Sorry again for the crappy photos. Need a real digital camera or a better phone.) A little de-scaling would have been in order before I opened this one up, I think. I can always do it later, but query for now what can be done to the element while it is out. The while gasket fits between the boiler and the heating element, at the base of the threads. It is made of white soft plastic - likely teflon. This one and others in the machine are in good shape, but some have been shredded.



With the heating element out, this is a shot of the boiler bottom. The white stuff you see is a paper-based seal of some sort, underneath which is another white plastic/teflon gasket. This one is in really good shape, but the paper disintigrated upon touch. A shot of the unusally-shaped white gasket follows.





So, problem number 2: replacing paper and some white gaskets. I'm not sure about the solution. Doug warns custom made will be costly. I may have to find some standard substitutes. Time to research.

Next, I popped of the lip rims from either end. Simple to do.



And here is a shot of the base casing without the boiler attached.



Taking stock of this boiler, already I can see it is complicated compared to the Cremina that I refurbed in October. It looks like a necessary complication given the design objective of an exposed, blingly brass boiler. There is no clear access to the entire interior of the boiler once the heating element is removed -- the element is narrow and about 15 cm tall, not wide and short, and the two other holes in the bottom are for a pressurestat pipe and a water line intake pipe. Both were massively corroded on this machine. Some delicate manipulation got the water intake nut open, and again you see the white teflon gaskets on both ends: the end receiving the pipe from the outside and the side that meets the boiler. Picture below.



Here is a shot of the smaller of the two gaskets with this nut that fits inside the nut to receive the head of the intake pipe fitting. Shot below.



The pressurestat intake pipe was stiff too, and here I made a bad mistake. I gave it a little extra shove to work it loose, and it seemed to sheer somehow. The threads appear to have fused/fixed to the boiler body, but sheared off almost smoothly, so that the nut came away fixed to the steampipe (if that is what you can call it) and the steam pipe could come out.

I got a sick feeling as this happened, because the "fix", if there is one, is not going to be straightforward at all. I have a bad feeling here. Here are a few pics of it coming out.





Now I'm in a tight spot. How the heck am I going to clean out those threads? Assuming I can get a new steam pipe and an assembly to fit the thing. Of the three big problems that come with the boiler breakdown, I could be snookered here on this item. Time for a beer and some learning.

Here is a shot though of the two holes once I got the pipe out. you can see the upper smaller hole is slightly smaller in circumference than the lower smaller hole, but they should be the same size. Bizarre.



So, summary of the evening's work. Need to source some teflon gaskets (and for other parts of rebuild) or next-best cheap solution that will keep the kid's Christmas intact. Need to fix a solution with the boiler's electrical nibs, which are damaged enough to warrant a full fix, or even a new boiler. Query effect on Xmas. Third, potentially terminal sheared threads issue. Research needed, no idea how to proceed on this one. I examined the pipe and nut fixing it to the boiler pretty closely, and it seems that it may have been soldered before, it is hard to see properly, but there is some evidence of solder on both sides of it (the part inside the boiler and the part outside the boiler). It may have been soldered to help seal it as a stop-gap measure, I'm not sure, but that seems like such a stupid idea I can't believe it would actually happen.

So, any HB wisdom on these three issues is most timely for me now. I'd prefer to make a clean refurb, of course, but will consider jury-rigged options if nothing else will work.

And now I have to clean up if I don't want to sleep on the couch. I'll post again soon.

Holy mackerel! Whudda mess!!!!!! Not to mention a confusion. From the broken off leads to the element to the twisted off threads, oh man, I do not envy you. If that heating element is good it is like GOLD. It is so tightly twisted and the only possible geometry to fit in that small boiler neck. We are trying to have some made but are getting little progress form the send me a drawing and the specs and we'll get back to you heating element makers.
Zaconni seemed to have a thing with the teflon washers and gaskets. Good heat breaker and as you can see, the best looking parts of the lot! I'm kindof at a loss as to what to advise you to do.
Maybe, PUNT!!!!!

Clean up the plastic gasket and lube it with some Teflon spray, and go at an autoparts store and get some gasket paper and cut a new paper gasket, a sheet cost a couple of bucks (you can probably do about 50 boilers like that with one of them sheets). If you want to go all the way you can get a sheet of Teflon gasket from some specialty stores, but those go for at least 10-20 bucks.

You could cut a paper gasket from the board of a box of kornflakes as well.
http://www.madeinthegarage.com//p...lng=fr&diapo_id=17

Best,
F

Sadly, that ain't gonna work for too long, the boiler cap will probably corrode shut with the boiler... Get the gasket paper, it's really cheap and it's the proper way to do it.