Last week I had the chance to take down a Peppina to do a clean and partial refurb, and in so doing, I cast around for pictures of the different parts as I broke the machine down. There were some -- but I thought it would be useful to have a single thread of fairly explicit pictures of a Peppina being disassembled. This thread should probably be combined with the excellent Peppina Redux thread that was a really useful line in doing my first work on this Peppina.

Rather than go through all the background information and preparatory bumfp, I'll just refer you to the Redux thread and launch into this particular machine. I picked it up off the Big E last fall for an amount that I'm still unclear about -- I thought wildly excessive at the time, but which seems modest now. It had a winding route back from Europe to my house (thanks Dennis) and when it got here, it looked in pretty decent shape.

First task, remove the boiler kettle. To do this, remove the wingnut holding down the circular steel plate at the inside base of the kettle. This is of course something I failed to take a picture of, but here is an assembled shot and then a schematic.





There should also be a large circular seal connecting the kettle and base. Once the wingnut, steel plate and kettle come off, you are left with the base / group head and an exposed element. It will look something like this from above.



That is a pic from above already well disassembled, but it gives you a visual of the open element.

Then, next step is to remove the nut holding the front of the group in, which was a flat/slothead screw, a smaller, more delicate bold holding the group on the base, and the bolt holding the rear of the base together. These both take allan keys to remove.





Not the easiest to see the small allan key bold from the front, but it is there. I'll try to post a pic of it later.

Next is to flip the machine over and de-couple the lever handle from the two flat steel rods that run up inside the base to the piston head. More shots of that below. These rods fit over the lever, which itself is L-shaped. They fit over the short arm of the "L" and fix on by square holes. The shots below shows it removed and the mechanism up close.







The rods took a bit of convincing to get off. Once they are, you can pull the lever out through the base fixture. The lever is fixed in by a c-clip on either side so watch out for that. The rods themselves have pins in them fixed by (much smaller) c-clips as well.

Next, a shot of the removal of the group head from the base. The group comes off with difficulty, and the spring becomes exposed.





Once the group is separated from the base, all the action is in the group. I got a little distracted and took apart some of the fixtures around the electrical coil. First, pop out the steel plate that holds in the springs. Then looking up the plug, see the unusual nuts holding the coil in. I didn't have the tool to remove them, I'll have to make one specially.





Next, a picture of the spring removed. Its massive. And a worms eye view of the base with the spring removed.





Then, not able to do much more on the element in the group, I bathed it in citric and turned to disassembling the group. The first pic is a basic pic looking up at the grouphead. Three slot-head screws over a dispersion screen, made from *very* soft brass. It was murder removing those without stripping them.



Then, removing the piston shaft and head. This is an interesting configuration, best shown not described.



A pic of the group with piston shaft and head removed.



A picture of the piston head assembly removed. It is composed of the piston head and a brass cowling.



Next, the brass cowling coming off.





The piston head itself. Lots of scale, and a very interesting little design on it. Just the one seal, and a recess in the piston head that leads to a hole from the centre of the recess up at an inclining angle to the lip of the piston head. On the upstroke, it forces water out through the hole toward the group head and disperson screen. Neat.







Then, back to the dispersion screen. Screws out, and shot of them. Doug has replacements.





And with the dispersion screen off...one seal underneath removed. Then another filter or dispersion screen underneath.







And removing the sub-screen or dispersion screen, another seal and the base of the group. Here a small gasket held on by a small screw. The small holes here lead back into the piston shaft.







So, there are a few pictures of the disassembly in case they are of use. As I review it I see I have missed some steps in this, which I'll attempt to fill in next post I get.

Cheers.

She's in pretty good state. Although she lacks the second ridge around the cilinder inlet port. Nice design touch to prevent you from ever pumping the element dry. Probably omitted in later models to cut costs. No big deal though, since only a fool would pump the element dry. She makes a hollow noise when running low and you've also got the espulsatore automatico.

I believe that many a Peppina in the field is incorrectly (re)assembled. One of the metal spacer rings with the three holes in it must go directly behind the dispersion screen to prevent misalignment and cupping of the screen.

See I gots me a La Peppina!

I have asked Barb over at OE this but at the time she had no source.

The question being does anyone know of a good replacment for the 100mm lid seal that goes arround the top of the steamer wand lid of the Le Pep?

-Cecil

VITON seals might survive the run-dry scenario but EPDM o-rings and washers would melt. They'll even start to perish if you let the machine run at a full boil for more than a few minutes. I'd advise against using the machine for steam, if you have EPDM seals.