I cringe writing this, but in the hopes that it helps someone down the road, here I go.

Blame it on Christmas..I was working night shift (well, someone has to in the airline industry) and got distracted while I had my Cremina turned on and the steam wand open. (I don't normally do this)
I left the area and when I returned and remembered I was in the process of making espresso, I found to my horror that my Cremina was very hot, and very empty of any water. Oh oh. Not a good way of testing the overheat switch.

But...it had done it's job and popped and once it cooled down, I was able to reset the switch. "Perfect" I said, wiped my brow and thought not much more till the next time I wanted to make espresso at work.

Heated things up and heard it spewing steam...but I had nothing open so..

I removed the case and discovered the over pressure safety valve was the culprit. No problem I thought, just needs tightening, a new seal and off we go.
A new seal later, heated things up and still had the 'leak' at the over pressure valve. Well, for the next two hours I tweaked and fiddled with the valve and seal..somehow I just couldn't get it to seal properly.
A day or two later, I was doing some thinking and I remembered I had a pressure gauge I could screw onto the boiler fill port.
Installed it and heated things up and whaddya know? That Cremina was putting out 1.5bar..there was no leak at the safety valve..IT was doing it's job properly as well.

Ok, running the boiler dry must have screwed up the pressurestat somehow. Started doing some tweaking of the pressurestat to turn it down and well, nothing I did made any difference.
Another weird thing was even though I heard the switch 'click' as the pressure climbed above .7bar, the heat element 'ON' light went from bright to dim..but not OUT.

Well, ok I told myself..must be some resistance in the switch. I mean, it looks original, and it's a '77 Cremina so how many times has it actuated? I see this all the time in the industry with switches that move considerable current.
Removed the leads on the pressurestat switch and hooked up my Fluke. Hmm. Nothing seems wrong. Maybe I need to get our Meggar out and see what some high voltage ohm checking shows me.

It was with the leads off the pressurestat switch when I plugged in the Cremina and turned it on. Wow, it started heating. Now THAT ISN'T RIGHT! That switch is normally closed until hi pressure turns it open.

I got serious, drew out the wiring schematic for my Cremina and discovered that removing one of the leads off the HEATING element should have stopped it from heating up. Well, it didn't. Double wow.

Soo, in overheating my Cremina, I caused a short to ground in the heating element area. Not a dead short, blow the breaker type, but a high resistance short that still enabled the element to heat up, and heat up until it blew the over pressure valve.
My element measures around 13ohms. Element terminal to case ground measures with my Fluke to be roughly 300 k ohms.
Fortunately for me, the case ground wire was hooked up and properly grounded thru to the receptacle otherwise I should have experienced some 'shocking' results.

Now, I need an element. Can't find one on OE's website.
Or maybe I don't need one. Maybe it's shorting thru the insulation collars at the base. Maybe the high heat fractured the collars somehow. Only a teardown will reveal the true fix.

Worst case scenario, apart from sacrificing a Breville machine for an element, anyone know of a source for a '77 Cremina element?

Well, that's my story. I feel like such an idiot.

Hopefully, someone can help you without buying anything, but I believe you have to go through cerinicoffee.com now to get parts as OE isn't the US supplier.

Here's a link to the electrical diagram for a 2002 Cremina, which should be more similar to a Cremina 67 than different:

http://shop.olympia-express.ch/OMTD/Cre ... REMINA.GIF

If you suspect that the element is the cause of the short, these OE posts could be helpful:

http://www.orphanespresso.com/Olympia-C ... 565-1.html

http://www.orphanespresso.com/Olympia-a ... 620-1.html

(While OE probably still has some Cremina parts in stock, beside gaskets and seals, Doug and Barb are out of the country right now. You'll probably want to check with Olympia's new vendor if you need parts.)

Thanks for the links and tips!
I'm going to investigate the wiring situation a bit more. It might actually be incorrectly wired as it is.
Regardless, a new element will shortly be ordered.
Thanks!

Hi Folks - I had cause to get try getting some parts from Olympia Express in the early Autumn and they were not able/interested in selling direct as they historically did before the last takeover. They did respond very politely with this:
"sorry, we don't sell gasekt sets for older models (in the moment) but for the Club and Cremina will fit the gaskets from new modell. for shipping to EU (and UK) please order at our partner Espressomachinendoctor in Kiefersfelden Endress olympia@espressomachinendoctor.de. shipping to EU is much easier."

The website for their Olympia shop is /www.espressomachinendoctor.de/Ersatzte ... fcbbc4ff64.

In the end I got busy with another project so didn't order from them but I intend to do so shortly.
They have the 240v heater and I would imagine might be able to source the 110v as they have the right contacts.
Hope that helps guys.
P

PS - I'm not certain that the gasket statement above is correct as I thought the later model revisions increased the boiler size so take that with a pinch of salt till someone better informed can confirm.

The new U.S. dealer is Cerini. They stock the heating element, gasket and safety switch as a kit. Here's the link:

http://www.cerinicoffee.com/olympia-cre ... -120v.html

Thanks everyone!

The strange saga continues.
With the help of member bobcraige and his link to the Cremina wiring diagram, the way my Cremina was wired became suspect.
Instead of the hot line running thru the pressurestat and safety thermostat, it actually was wired in reverse. Hot straight to element. Theoretically, if the pressure stat switch had opened once hitting .8bar, I should have lost the return line but somehow the circuit found a return path and kept the element heating up regardless.

Why it only did this AFTER I overheated it is anyones guess. Since I've rewired the plug so hot comes thru the pressure stat, there has been no 'uncontrolled' heating. Somehow, the ground path disappeared. I'm at a loss to explain this and right now my brain is fuzzy because it's been too long since a caffeine hit.

Anyhow, this is actually a good reason for anyone using a second hand machine to inspect the plug wiring and machine wiring to ensure the safety systems built into the device are wired and working properly.

Someone else had a similar issue recently:

Olympia Cremina 67 overheating

Glad you got to the bottom of the problem.

That is a much easier fix than replacing the heating element. Congratulations! Now get some caffeine. These Creminas are great. I just refueled on a luscious capp made with a chocolatey Barefoot Haiku six days post roast.