FotonDrv wrote:+1

I'm thinking about mounting it sideways like my Aurelia is done. This would serve the same purpose and less bending of copper (which I have never done before). Luckily the copper is coiled and I have a lot of it to work with.

I know they used it like this without issue. I wonder why they didn't fix it. Seems easy enough.

Space considerations? I would locate it above the exit port of the boiler, above where that curly copper tube goes into the boiler, but that is just me. I tend to over think things

That's a great idea as well! Then I wouldn't have to deal with hardly any bending at all. I could just cut the tube the length that I needed it then mount it there. I will take a good look at it later and see where the best place is and how far the wires will go. Thanks for the solid advice gentlemen.

I am pretty stoked that after buying a vintage machine all I have to do is move a pstat to make it near perfect

Looking through some older threads this will probably the best possible place and way to move the pstat.

I am thinking of getting the plastic case for it as well. Without it there are no screws to mount it to anything, right now it's simply hanging by the copper tubing and I don't like that very much.

Okay so a few more pictures and a question. I took out the Pistons to inspect the inside and they looked flawless. No rust, corrosion, they look brand new.

On this picture I notice the sleeve isn't brass. I was under the assumption they were made of brass?? Or could this be simply chrome plated brass? Sorry for the stupid question but this is my first lever and searching shows nothing.

EDIT: I found the answer. It's chrome plated brass on the inside. Which makes sense so you don't get brassy shots.



Another question I had is that on the left group (the original old style group), the metal O-rings to the spring assembly do not spin freely while the ones on the right group do. Watching Doug's (OE) very informative video on YouTube they are supposed to spin freely. Is this cause for concern? This group also squeaks when pulling down while the right one doesn't.

Fantastic score. You will love the shots.

I'm stoked on the score! So thank you. I've read and researched a lot about levers over the past few weeks in anticipation so I'm happy to join the club. I think the profiles they give will be right up my alley. I have to wait till Sunday to get her up and running though

The Pstat was mounted low probably because of the gas burner under the boiler.

I would imagine that the top of internal space would get rather hot, and anything plastic (such as the cover to pstat) would melt or even worse, catch fire. The same goes to any wiring mounted up high, expect them to become brittle from the excess temps that migh be present.

Well that makes sense now that I think about it, kind of silly of me not to realize it. I think I'll just flip the pstat right side up and call it a day then! Glad I didn't move it being as I will be using propane probably 50% of the time.

So tried to fire her up today and it was a no go. The building I'm in was built 30 years ago and so were the electrical outlets. I tripped the breaker a couple of times on warm up. So I need to replace the outlet with a newer 20 amp gfci outlet. That will at least allow me to get past the headache of tripping the breaker every once in a while. I realize this machine is drawing a lot of power on warm up so tripping a gfci occasionally can happen.

This got me thinking of anything else that could cause the trip. So I tested the heating element and it checked out perfectly. Using a multimeter I read 5.7-5.8 ohms across both terminals. Which translates to 2000 watts roughly. That's good news, a bad heating element could cause a trip.

I'm still on hold for testing the machine until I can install a new outlet. It did get up to .5 bar and that was high enough to test the levers and make sure there are no leaks. Both worked fine with no leaks. No leaks around the boiler basket. And no leaks on any of the fittings. This is all great news to me. Using the flojet to fill up I was surprised how fast the manual fill was.

So I'll be posting my thoughts on the actual espresso it makes later in the week. Until then, I'll try not to go crazy letting her sit alone.