I've sourced silicone jacketed wire from ebay, boating supply stores, and hobby shops. I also sourced water resistant silicone jacketed spade connectors from the boating people as well. Figured anything rated for a marine engine compartment would be good for our purposes as well. I also usually go up a spec in wire gauge. It's usually also good to replace wire with a like kind, stranded or solid.

If doing a complete rebuild it's also a good time to see if the cable routing could be improved.

Espresso machines mostly come from Europe where the wires are sized for 220 Volts. Here in the Americas, our supply voltage is 120 and consequently
the machines' wire gauge may be undersized. I found that in my Italian QuickMill. Any wiring upgrades should consider amperage draws, and 14 to 12 gauge for home machines is more realistic. The insulation class is yet another story after wire sizes. My new wires are rated at 600 volts.
Cheap terminals don't help. It's only very light 'spring' pressure that keeps the terminals tight. Once overheated, there's no tight and no spring left.
Get the more professional models, 'Stakon' comes to mind.

D.

The wire I purchased match these specs.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/25-feet-16-AWG- ... 58b741ce82

I second the importance to use high quality connectors...cheap stuff is a poor choice and these connectors do fail prematurely or do not connect as well as they should, If can do without them pls consider NOT using those 'convenient for fabrication and repair' connectors as a soundly made hard wired connection usually is better...but if you want to use crimp connectors please do buy a decent crimping tool...

Silicone sleeved high temp resistant wire should be easy to find, the local equivalent of your home depot had it in the city where I live when I installed new wiring in my Faemina.

Update: I replaced all the wires (including the power cable) with 12 gauge, "appliance quality" wires and, a few weeks in, everything seems to be working fine with no temperature issues.

I got the wires from Amazon, here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001AL ... UTF8&psc=1

The only real complexity was caused by the fact that I didn't want to buy multiple spools of wire with different color insulation, which I dealt with by using permanent markers to color the ends of the insulation to distinguish them.

Note that use of a proper crimping tool is highly recommended anytime you are working with this type of connector.

And, finally, yes, is was a bit of a chore to pack the 12 gauge wire into that space, but ultimately not that big of a deal.

Here's the end result:

Yes, loose connections do create heat and would be something to check. But also the voltage at which you operate the machine, whatever is coming out of the wall socket, will have an effect on heating of the wiring. A machine that is sold for 110V will get much hotter where I live because the wall socket give 122.5V or 245V if the "220v" machines are used.

Just something to consider.

Think that using a slightly higher voltage will have very little effect on the heating of wires unless they are underdimensioned to begin with.

That is sort of a big IF considering, but it is a consideration. Companies tend to design things to make as much money as possible and smaller wires cost less money, lower rated switches cost less money. So, if you push it over its design limits it can get hot.

Both switches and wires heat up more due to the current running through them than from the voltage. An increase from 120v to 130v surely does not translate in considerably more heat, increasing the current by the same percentage does.
A cables voltage rating comes mainly from its insulation, while the current rating is linked to the wire thickness. Poor to begin with and then getting bad over time connections due to cheap connectors and switches are indeed an issue many manufacturers seem to carefully neglect imo.

Since the resistance of the heating element is fix the increase in voltage translates directly to increased current draw. The heating element is by far the largest draw of current, and the other things like loose connectors just add to the current.

It is simple to change the wiring and switches if they are not up to the loads imposed upon them but the heating element is another story! Swapping that for a new one is a PITA I would suspect. I have changed the heating element on one of my machines (not a PV) and it was not fun. Then you add corrosion to the element and it is losing it's efficiency and causing the machine to maintain a longer ON time. Sort of a vicious circle.

Kurt, you did a nice job on rewiring the machine and it appears that you selected the high temp wires to do it! Kudos