This is a great thread to watch. Too bad none of the flea markets I've ever been to have such beauties!

Tim, you do have an Eagle eye for details, but you'r right, in one of the pictures, showing the spring tension tool, the levergroup does looks Italian, but it is Spanish, the picture was taken when I was rebuilding a 1964 Spanish Gaggia Lever, my first.
From the outside the Italian and the 1964 Spanish group are alike, but inside you'll find a totally different seal and gasket design.
The Spanish use a long sleeve in which the Piston seals are imbedded.
The Italians use stacks of rings and fibre seals to seal the piston.

Tim:I have ordered all my parts via Doug and Barb.

To get the Piston separated from the shaft I used this little beauty:

Nice wrench! I reckon i'da busted mine if I'd gone near it with that thing

Ditto Doug and Barb for the parts. What a fantastic service they provide, and they are sooo helpful. kudos.

Yeh I've got the spanish version group, and i'll be posting pics soon of putting it back together. Have you got any more pics?

Are you considering insulating your boiler? Its so big it heats our whole house on a chilly morning.
I've seen some boilers wrapped in foil and some with batts stuffed round it.

Tim,
I'm going to use the gas heating system in combination with a PID temperature controller, like I have done on my 1964 levergroup.
On this 1964 2 group lever the gas system heats up till the 12 liter boiler reaches about 110 C, then the gasheating is shut down and the PID takes over.
I am using only one of the heating elements (1500 Watt), the other element is not in use.
With only controlling the 1500 Watt element the PID works like a dream.

Initially I wouldn't use the gas heating at all, mainly because of the lack of any decent fail-safe system, then I found what I needed, a barbeque burner with Piezo-lighter and a thermocouple controlled gas shut-off valve.

Because of the gas heating there won't be any insulation on my boiler.

If you are using electricity only for heating, insulation is a must, go and see an insulation firm, they should have a (black)foam-type wrap around insulation, 3/4 inch thick, I have used this before.

This barbeque heater has two burners, for the lever it has to be modified to one burner = 2.2Kw

while waiting on spares, we started the big clean-up.
As soon as the ordered 5 kilogram Citric-acid arrived, the boiler,the flanges, piping and heating elements received a thorough (36 Hours) bath in a 15% acidizing solution.

To neutralize the acid everything was then rinsed in a mild Soda-Ash solution.

After the clean-up several broken stud bolts had to be drilled out and renewed, I have decided not to use carbon steel, I got some 8mm 304 stainless studs, incl. washers and nuts at the local hardware store.
Also bought some 3mm thick Klingerit material, to make gaskets out of for the boiler-flange, and levergroup flanges and the heating elements.
Also got me a 100 gram tube Dow Corning 111, locally known as Molykote 111 Compound..

The valves and levergroups will have to wait until parts arrive.

The chassis has been sandblasted and received two layers of undercoating, I reckon there is no need for further corrosion protection there.
Today I made a start assembling the boiler and piping as far as possible.

Damn, i gotta come by sometime soon Ton
I'll bring some coffee

He Sebastiaan, good to see you here.

People have asked me how the gasflow to the gasburner is controlled, well, it is boiler pressure that controls the gasflow. If your machine is designed to operate with gasheating, the regulater may be allready installed.

Steam enters the top of a gasflow regulator which contains a membrane, as boiler pressure increases the steam will depress the membrane and limit the gasflow, as boiler pressure drops the gasflow will increase accordingly.
The gasflow regulater can be preset to control and/or even cut off the gasflow at any boiler pressure, in fact it works very similar to a P.stat.
In addition a thermocouple flame control is installed on the burner.

The modification of the gasburner has been completed, the photo's show that a Piezo lighter and a thermocouple have been added to the gas burner.

The gasflow to the burner will be controlled by the boilerpressure to the gasflow regulator, the thermocouple will only keep the gasvalve open when the burner is lit, it will prevent any gasflow to the burner once the flame, for whatever reason has been exstinguished.
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Wow, I must say your expertise is impressive. I love the gas, do you just connect it to your house gas supply?

Tim:
Thank you for your kind words, impressive... expertise..., boy not often do I hear that around the house.

Well, about the type of gas used;
These burners are mainly designed to be used with lpg bottled gas.
I guess you could change over to natural gas, but you would have to buy another gas jet assembly.
Natural gas has a different pressure and calorific value than lpg.

I remember as a child when my parents place was first hooked up to the natural gas supply, people from the gas-company exchanged the jets in the cooker and oven, tested and certified that everything was safe to use..

I have added some foto's, one showing the 30 mili-bar gas pressure reducer I use.
Also the original Lpg Jet assembly that was used prior to the thermocouple modification.