Thanks Doug, I had noticed a nick in the lower seal (brand new too) so I pulled it and put in the original with the same result, though the original was hard and loose. We'll see when the next batch of seals come in. The Baby I have seems awfully new (relatively speaking), but you never know. It had W seals top and bottom. The top seal doesn't move and seems good.

It's strange having a machine that actually holds temp and pressure. Now I just need to get it to work!

The lever throw on this machine seems short when compared to a Pavoni, does this mirror any one else's experience with this machine?

So I got new seals and shimmed the bottom seal a bit as it turned pretty easily. Pressure held, unfortunately, the small crack on the grouphead that I'd noticed near the portafilter lock turned out to be a bigger issue than I thought it would be.



I'd noticed it before, but the portafilter seemed to lock into place, but since the seals were giving out, it wasn't subject to the full pressure of a real pull. Is this fixable or do I need to replace the head? Basically, it looks like someone tried to force the portafilter out at some point in time and caused the damage because there's a big dent/divot in the other side of the grouphead along the edge. I've contacted the ebay seller about this too, of course.