Yes there is a boiler gasket.



The whole parts diagram is available here as a PDF file.

-Cecil

On your photo it look like the gasket is still on your boiler and not on the plate.

Rob

phillip,
i have recently come into posession of a Z9 2-group lever machine, myself. it's obviously been sitting around for a number of years, so i would like to plumb my machine in and turn it on to see if it is in working condition. do you have any advice for me regarding what steps i must take in just safely turning it on for the first time, now that you have had a little of your own personal experience?

while the boiler on the outside looks like it's in pretty good condition (no white drool leak stains, etc...) my guess is that the boiler is going to need some good descaling. to give you my background, i have never worked on the inside of an espresso machine before, so i am coming in as a newbie. my hope is to get some good coaching so that i can get some good learning under my belt as i tackle this endeavor. if it works for you, i would be glad to call you and talk to you in person, seeing as we have the identical machines (even the orange). thanks for your thoughts.
-ned

Well stone the crows, I've just got a Z11 LE 3 gp, I've read this thread 100 times over the last week and here it is back from the dead.

Any chance of a progress report from the OP or did it end up under the bench?

Ned, my apologies, I haven't checked the thread for a wee while. Very glad to know that someone else out there is embarking, or has so, on the same journey as I. On the electrical question, that machine should be wired for 220V (what does the front plate say - 220V 2700 Watt?). If it is, the plug should not fit into your wall outlet, unless you have a 220V receptacle - perhaps your dryer?
As for progress, I haven't done much in a fortnight, but tomorrow shows promise.

-phillip

After a couple of weeks or so, I picked up the gauntlet, again, over the weekend. A few questions:

1) I've gone as far as I can with the spring-piston without using brute force - the retaining clips are off, as you can see from the photos. I've examined the parts diagrams, but they haven't been of much help. Should I use something to dissolve away the oil that may be binding two parts together? Other advice?


2) What can I use to eat away at the coffee junk inside of the shower screen? I've scrubbed what I can.



3) Is the heating element copper? I've had it sitting in a lemon juice bath for over 12 hours and it looks pretty much the same - caked on crud.

thank you,
phillip





Just something motivating to look at, it cleaned up very nicely:

Hi Philip,

it's a nice machine you have. A very similar one just escaped me yesterday ...

You can download a very good parts booklet directly from rancilio - here is the link - where on page 10 you will find a very detailed and readable drawing of the lever construction which will surely raise your understanding of what can come off and what should better be kept together. The lever group hasn't changed since and is still the one you have. It is not (only) oil that is binding parts together but you have to screw them apart.

For the shower screen Pulycaff is the weapon of choice - if you can support it with heat and ultrasonic cleaning, things will speed up, otherwise time will support you

And the heating element is copper - lemon juice will not be the thing you should use - you have to buy citric acid from your drugstore (50-100g per liter of water) and again a moderate heating of about 60-80°C will speed things up ... make sure the electrical contacts stay out of the soup, otherwise the element will be damaged in no time.

Cheers Emil

I gave my groups a going over at the weekend and found that the bar the roller bearings mount on is not the pivot and is part of the yoke casting and does not continue through the middle, shown on the parts diagram. The pivot pin is behind this point and is partially obscured by the bearings. The bearings are a press fit and would require a puller to remove them and a press to reinstall. The pivot pin will drift out when the bearings are off.

I didn't go this far as the mechanism was still good and smooth. I just purged all the grease with fresh stuff through the grease port and removed the roller guides to give the top end a real good clean.

Regarding the rusty spring, only one of my groups had suffered seal failure causing rust which I removed with a wire brush. I measured the rusted coils with a vernier and found they had lost 0.1 - 0.2mm. Not enough to loose sleep over IMO. I would give this a go before embarking on a spring replacement. I understand if this sounds like corner cutting to you, but I'm a firm believer in not fixing that which isn't broken!

Here's one I cleaned up, and yes, the bench does look a mess. Poor camera angle, honest.

Hi Phillip,

Lovely machine !

I recently restored my single group Z9. Mine is an early 80's model and has autofill like yours.



Once you get yours going you'll realise what a wonderful machine the Z9 Lever is. My wife every morning asks "is the coffee machine on ?" !

I hope I can be of help so feel free to ask any questions. Before this machine I restored my 2 group La San Marco lever so I have a little experience.

In answer to your questions regarding the spring/lever disassembly the pictures below and the parts diagram should help.




To properly recondition this assembly you need to remove the brass seal holder etc so you can remove the spring, main shaft and give everything a really good clean.
To do this you firstly unscrew the seal holder from the shaft using a vice or similar to assist. The trick which my father in law showed me ( a boiler maker) is that if you give the brass seal holder a solid tap on it's side with a heavy hammer (when it is lying on a solid surface) it will be easy to unscrew. I unscrewed it with a pipe spanner with some material wrapped around it, as I do not have any special Rancilio tools.

Once you've unscrewed it you will see that there is a pin. This retains the next part on the shaft (see last photo). Push out this pin. Then unscrew the spring retaininer using anything that is a good fit in the pin hole (eg a screwdriver or punch). As you unscrew the spring retainer the spring will slowly uncompress. Dont worry - just keep unscrewing. When it finally unscrews theres almost no force left on the spring so you cant kill anyone.

I cleaned all the greasy parts in engine cleaner and using a scourer to remove all rust etc.

All the parts you should need are available in stock from coffeeparts.com in Sydney here: http://www.coffeeparts.com/rancilio/ran...rts-3.html They give great service.

I would definitely order a new spring as they are only A$28. The new spring was significanly stronger than my old rusted spring = correct extraction pressure = better espresso !

I cleaned my shower screen with caustic as it is stainless.

I cleaned my copper parts with Citric acid and this worked fine !

When it comes to reasembly I used a good quality (high temp) food grade grease on the shaft and bearings and just a small amount on the rubber seals.

Have fun and feel free to ask more questions. The Z9 is great to use !

Cheers

Simon

Hi Ned,

In answer to your questions about getting the machine going for the first time this is what I did:

DONT plug it in (yet)

Remove the side panels and physically check the wiring. Look for signs of any loose, frayed, burnt or damaged wires. If you see any, then these need to be checked and replaced by a qualified person as per the wiring diagrams.

Next you can drain and flush the boiler. I drained the boiler by disconnecting one of the pipes near the bottom of the boiler, in my case the one that feeds the sight gauge I think. Look at the colour of the water coming out of the machine for the first time. In my case it was very clean so I elected not to descale or dissasemble the boiler (but I will at some future time !). You can flush the boiler by connecting up your machine (eg a garden hose in my case ) and use the manual fill lever to fill and flush the boiler. I left the drain pipe disconencted so water was quickly flowing in and out of the boiler to flush out any gunk.

Before switching on you need to check the pressure relief valve on the machine. You should search on the forums here for advice on this as it's important !

If the wiring is in good condition you can now fill the machine using the manual fill valve and switch it on to see if it heats up. In my case my machine heated but the pressure gauge and group required cleaning / and restoration to get them working. You might be lucky and it works first go. The aim at this stage is to test the main element. If it is heating and autofilling then you should only need to order the normal group service parts, and perhaps a new pressure relief valve if required to get it going. If you want to do a full restoration then you should descale the boiler as well of course by dissassembly.

Cheers
Simon

Just a quickie, I reassembled my machine and fired it up for the first time last night to check the element and see if I can do a descale in-situ rather than in a tank. All was well, with just a slight leak from the OPV base gasket. The only thing was gp1 flowed water nicely, gp2 was struggling to allow any water through and what did come through was hissing and steaming, and gp 3 flowed abundant mega hot hissing water! I'm not too worried at this stage as I have not yet descaled. I did re-build the 1-way vavlves and they seemed to function well. The p-stat is set with the mano showing 0.9bar, but I'm not trusting it too much.

Anyone got any ideas about the super heated water?

Hi frustrated,

Well it can be one of a few things causing this:

1. The very small drilled hole feeding the water into the piston cylinder could be partially blocked.
2. The boiler to group pipes could be partially blocked.
3. The pressure is set too high.


Its most likely 1 by the sounds of it. Remedy is to soak the cylinders in citric (with the non return valves removed) and carefully poak out any remaining crud with a fine wire.

If the boiler isnt too bad interms of scale you should be able to get the machine running.

Also check the water level is correct.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Simon

Thanks Simon

My first thought was the two small inlet holes in the cylinder. I will be descaling the machine later today so I'll see whether that helps. If not I will remove the cylinders and clean the holes out manually as you suggest. Next step will be to attach a trustworthy manometer. I'll let you know...

Ah, that'll be why the group is getting dragon water from the top of the boiler then...



Full calcium blockage and a sabbatical in someone's back garden during the big freeze combine to produce dramatic results!

Now thats what I call scale !!

Well done.

Mokka,
Very happy that you found this post, and decided to contribute. There was so much corrosion on the bottom of my spring that I had no idea it was shiny brass. The next step it to get this contraption into a vise - I'll let you know what happens.

-phillip

Looks like Mokka's replacement springs have been the subject of a welcome design update, they look like they are electroplated to prevent corrosion in the event of seal failure and are probably from the new Classe 6 lever machine. I found several parts I ordered had been superseded by updated items, all of which fitted nicely.