Hi,
I have been home roasting coffee since 2001 and brewing it in my La Pavoni lever machine for almost as many years. Recently, I inherited another La Pavoni when my uncle passed away. I thought that it would be great to use his machine in my bicycle shop to help with community building, "Coffee Saturdays, free espresso shots when you ride your bike in". What I found is that while the Pavoni is a great home machine it is not really up to the task of pulling shots all day long.




So, I started looking for a commercial machine with the long range idea of selling coffee as a shop community builder and a possible income generator during the slow times. I wanted a lever pull machine that I could restore, satisfying my mechanics need to understand how things work and the love of the human/machine interaction. If given the choice I will pick pulling the lever over pushing the button in life every time.

Enter the Astoria...



Last Sunday I picked up this machine on Craigslist for $400. I wouldn't call it "good condition" but perfect condition for one of my nature. I think the price was good as the machine is complete and in almost working condition.

Tuesday was a free day so I decided to begin the tear down. Before starting the tear down I hooked it up to my welder's extension cord verifying that the element worked and that there were no leaks. The pressure stat started cycling on and off after about one ½ hour, there was plenty of steam and hot water but the group heads did not work properly. I expect this will be helped by cleaning and rebuilding.




I took a lot of photos of plumbing and wiring so I could remember how to put it back together.







If I had to do the photos over I would not do so many close ups, a pulled back image would give more info as to where that pipe actually went to.




That said, the machine is pretty simple after one starts to understand how it works.
Aside from the disassembled valve fittings I think I could reassemble it without the picture. Not that I'm willing to erase them yet.



All taken apart...I should have put it up on a work bench for that job, my body was sore for several days after crawling around on the floor all day.

Larry-

Looks like a great project. I hope the spiders you chased out were able to relocate.

I spent the rest of the week cleaning copper and brass between bike repair jobs.



The fact that there are 11 bolts on the boiler makes me happy...kind of like one of those monster radial engines on an old warbird. Anyway, geeking out.



The inside of the boiler had some heavy black buildup....iron deposits?




I used citric acid for cleaning the boiler internals...it took an overnight soak to get rid of the black deposits. For the rest of the fittings I used muriatic acid. I have learned that one should neutralize with baking power/soda after using the acids.





Things cleaned up pretty well...I used Joe's Moonshine chrome cleaner on the boiler externals and steel wool for a final finish on the copper pipes.

Larry-

There were definitely spiders living in there...pretty sure the shop is their new home.
L-

what is that big U shaped tube on one of the boiler ends for?

Looking good so far- do you plan to restore it as is: or leave the front of the machine uncovered with the group exposed? The 70's machines that hid the groups always seemed like a shame to me.

The Group head.



Very rusty springs...



Lots of green crusty stuff where the group meets the boiler.





I used a vice with aluminum jaw guards and a spanner wrench to disassemble the spring system. They both came loose on one end easy and the other hard. It is useful to get both ends of the shaft free as it make reassembly of the spring simple. I was worried about the corrosion on the spring, but I showed them to Sky at Republic Espresso and he didn't think it was a problem.



If both ends of the shaft are free there are enough threads reassemble without compressing the spring.



I put some grease on the threads and reassembled the pistons. Sky at Republic Espresso has offered to help me with the final assembly so we will install new gaskets and such when I finish with the frame mods.

Larry-

The U shaped tube is a heat ex-changer...water passes through here before entering the groups. My own un-educated guess is that its purpose is to stabilize group head water temp. I have noticed other (older?) Astoria lever machines do not have them.
L-

Now the fun part.



This machine is one ugly dog with lots of potential. I have custom built all of my shop fixtures in a sort of industrial/modern style....hoping to follow suit with the Astoria.



A very rough sketch, go ahead and laugh.



The first step is to remove the front brackets...those group heads are beautiful...we need to see them.



A little cutting, grinding and sanding.



Next, welding in brackets for a new surround.



The lower rail was not in plane with the rest of the frame so it had to be ground down about half an inch.



A mock-up install of the group heads.



A painted cardboard mock-up for the surround.



Next step is to build the new cup rail.

Larry-

Hi Larry, nice catch! I have not seen a FIORE with HX before.
I wouldn't swear for better temperature stability in the first line but you are definitly pulling shots from 'fresh water' source.
As a matter of fact the CMA group by itself is considerably stable due to construction: there is a sleeve in the group's body (in which lifts & lowers the piston) to hold and cool down the amount of water for the subsequent shot. As long as you don't try 'cooling flushs' this works pretty well even for classic non-HX levers.
Assuming constant heavy duty commercial espresso operations a HX may be the more sophisticated way, though.
Once you have disassembled the group it would be reasonable to also press out the sleeve and put it back in with two new o-rings. Shure you don't want to go for new springs instead of fatigued ones?
Thanks for the pics!
Robert