After many years of resisting the urge, a great deal came up unexpectedly and I have finally added a lever to my ever growing list of coffee paraphernalia.

According to a very nice guy, the previous owner, he bought it new 12 years or so ago, used it over a weekend and gave up after a struggle to figure it out. After that one weekend, he ended up pretty much moving the machine around empty with no heart, but a little dirty until selling it to me today some 12 years later. He mentioned that he just got busy with life and has since gone through 2-3 superautomatics ever since. But I digress...

From the looks of it, this really is a close to unused, albeit neglected, Gaggia Factory g105 with a manufacture date of November of 2000 with some odd details. I have done a ton of research on the forums and read up on these machines and it seems this is yet another variation of the hybrid machines. I had not seen much discussion on the Gaggia Factory machines in the threads discussing pre or post millennium la pavonis especially the hybrids.

So this tin man, has the single switch, adjustable pressure stat, the safety valve on the boiler cap, and the steam wand that does not remove yet it still has the larger group. I will check to see if it has the brass piston over the next couple of days, as I was planning on that as a possible upgrade.



It also has a rather involved electrical layout.



Anyone know how to adjust the pressurestat in the picture below? I assume I move the black gear with teeth? I most likely will get the gauge kit attached before I attempt to adjust it.





The boiler is very clean with no visible scale and the wiring and chrome look new inside and out.

Oddly enough the double PF basket and the group head still had coffee on it from 12 years ago. So far the only cleaning I have done was a very mild citric acid wash in the boiler, and some Cafiza on the PF, basket screen.

He still had the original the box, scoop, manual, and awful plastic tamper etc but the funny thing is that the included tamper does not fit into the basket as it is too big on one side and too small on the other.

So far the only real issues is that steam wand drips. I suspect he over-tightened it or that something inside the wand needs to be cleaned out. In the short time he was showing me the machine I could see him tighten too much and I winced.

Any suggestions on fixing the dripping wand? I assume I need to adjust the valve assembly or replace a gasket/washer?

Beyond that should I still do all of the seals and gaskets if this machine is so clean? This tin man has no rust.

Thanks for any feedback.

I am looking forward to putting in some of my freshly roasted beans in once I get a suitable tamper and the leaky wand fixed. Until then we are off to see the wizard.

J

I think that Gary will have lot to say about that pstat.
Pay a lot of attention when you will try to turn the ring. It should be glued. Removing the glue is not so simple.
If you pull the entire pstat, it should turn.
On the other side you can find a sort of black plastic screw in the corner
I found on my pstat that you can regulate pressure also turning that screw, but there are doubts that this behaviour can be extended to all models.

For what concerning the machine, it seems to me one of the borderline models typical of years around 2000.
Some feature of the millennium in a still pre-millennium pattern
Interesting machine

It is true that posts about Gaggia Factory are not many.
But actually almost all discussions on La Pavoni machines can apply to Gaggia Factory also.

alberto

Congrats on the find. I had two of these, both of which developed the same leak over time. You may find this link worth reviewing. The leak is from a bad metal on metal fitting; the rubber portion of the gasket prevent water from leaking on the know side, not the wand side. You can see that on this video. As mentioned, the Factory and Pavoni Pro share almost all the same parts, so a search for one probably applies to the other.

If you go about adjusting your p-stat, you first want to look at a few threads, like this one or this one.

This is a great little machine, and it used to be somewhat underrated, making them snatchable for a bargain. Yeah, those days are now gone, with them bringing much closer, if not the same, as a comparable Pavoni.

On a side note, if you take off the lever and find that it no longer has the pressure it did before you worked on it, chances are you installed the lever upside down. This review from Dave Stephens shows a great view of the proper installation.

Hope this helps!

Thank you both for the replies.

I had not seen the middle two links. They are really helpful on adjusting the pstat.

I will do teardown of the steam assembly and see if cleaning it out helps with the dripping.

I was fortunate enough to be able to make this afternoon a coffee heavy activity day. I roasted a bunch of different coffees, and then got to experiment with the Gaggia Factory.

So far I tried cleaning up the steam valve as suggested in the other threads and its still leaking. Not sure what else to try other than the gasket kit.

In terms of shots, I found that the top of a pill bottle works pretty well as a temporary tamper and managed to pull a few really bad to barely drinkable shots so far. I have to say I am really surprised at how fine the grind needs to be versus pulling shots using the same fresh roasted beans on my Elektra T1. I am using a k10 as the grinder.

After a few refill cycles of the tin man it would seem I still may need to grind finer, which was already much finer than anything I could pull on the T1 without completely choking it. Even the last round of shots are thin, oily with little to no crema. I have tried the same techniques I have read on the forums and seen, and I think I am following a technique which would result in at least decent shots.

Once the machine is up to temp:

• [1] Weigh, grind, dose, tamp (release false pressure from the steam wand if its the first shot)
  [2] Partially place the PF,
  [3] Lift lever about 50% up,
  [4] Finish inserting the PF all the way
  [5] Raise the lever all the way and hold for about 10 seconds
  [6] Slowly with even pressure lower the lever

So after several rounds of experimentation, I ended up moving the k10 grind adjustment ring a total of about 1/4 of a full rotation finer, which is usually a big difference on this grinder. Still after all of that adjustment, dosing 15 grams exactly every time, tamping from 15-30lbs I still end up with very thin shots. They have gotten slightly better but nothing even remotely close to what I believe these machines are capable of.

Is it possible the group or something else in the machine needs a rebuild, or should I just grind finer still?

BTW, I read this and other helpful threads La Pavoni Europiccola instructions... for newbies for details on pulling shots.

Thanks

John

John, what's your dose weight? Oh, 15 grams, that may be a bit light and could account for having to grind so fine. I normally dose 16 grams on my Gaggia Factory, unless it's a really dense bean which may leave more headspace where I'd up the dose even more. I did notice it took a finer grind that my La Peppina at first, but now it seems about equal. The lack of crema may indicate that you need to coarsen up your grind, if my grind is too fine, the crema suffers.

When you raise the lever all the way and hold for ten seconds, you may want to lower the lever just a bit to help saturate the puck, try and lower it until you just see a drop hit the cup, eventually you'll get the feel for it. This should help the shot.

My Factory has a vacuum breaker, thus no need to purge air to relieve "false pressure" but I'm not sure if yours has this or not. Stick with it, you'll get there, it's a great machine.

Thanks for the reply. So maybe I will try updosing a bit 16g or a little higher, go coarser and see how that changes things.

With this new lever machine, I guess I just need to go back to remembering the basics and adjust accordingly.

j

Rise up the lever with PF inserted with coffee inside.
You should observe no output from the PF for at least 6-7 seconds.
Then start pressing the lever.
If flow starts by itself before that time, you need to grind finer. Or it could be a leaking inside your group. Gaskets or even the teflon inner part of the group broken.
If flow does not start by itself after 10-15 seconds with lever rised up, I would say you have to grind coarser.
I think you should also be sure about your boiler pressure. Often too high pressures give no crema as result.
Install a thermometer on the group also.
Temperature is the key factor.
I don't think that massive sessions are the right thing to do. After 2-3 shots the group is probably overheated. No chance to obtain crema anymore. You have to cool down the machine for at least 20 minutes before turning it on again.
alberto

Alberto, Thanks for the information. I will experiment with testing the control of the flow as you suggested.

With regards to actual pressure, until I install a gauge I am not sure what the pressure of the machine is. As for temperature I have been managing things at a reasonable level following the techniques suggested for keeping things under control such as turning the machine off and using a water cooled portafilter to reduce the group temp.

My latest rounds this morning I managed to pull a couple of shots that looked a little better but still not anything like I have seen on the videos. I suspect I had been over-extracting since after making the grind a bit coarser and updosing I am getting the best results so far. I will continue fine tuning using the methods you suggested and post some results.

I also tried cleaning the threads on the steam valve inside and out, one last time and still have leaking so I will need to figure out what else to try on that.

Thanks again,

John

I think I was able to finally figure this out. I was misreading the pulls and grinding way too fine.

The information from Alberto really helped me translate my understanding of pulling shots to this lever.

So finally, after a total of about 8-10 actual shot pulls, I am finally getting a sense of what this machine is capable of.

I am surprised at how the layers of flavors I can get from this machine are noticeably different from any of my pump machines including the T1.

The timing could not be any better either, as my 1 year old Elektra T1 just developed a leak from the seal at the upper nut on the boiler.

Thanks again to all for the input. I guess I am now officially a member of the lever club.

Update: I thought I should add my dose. 17 grams , tamped with about 30lbs of pressure with good even distribution, seems to be the sweet spot for what I am pulling. Coffee is roasted to Full City.

John