Recently every time I made espresso with my 1999 La Pavoni Europiccola it became more and more obvious that the machine was crying out to be subjected to the periodic disassembly and cleaning procedure. There was substantial friction when I moved the handle when the machine was not under pressure. Boiler water kept getting slightly cloudy even though there were no leaks. Something just seemed to be slightly wrong with shots that should have been perfect.

I sat the machine in the middle of the kitchen floor with a large soup bowl near it to hold parts as I removed them. I got out my espresso machine tool kit and sat it by the soup bowl. I removed the boiler cap and portafilter. I removed the 16mm nuts from the top of the group and pushed the handle all the way down, causing the filter screen to move down a bit. I removed the pins from the handle and removed it. I pushed down the piston and removed it. I was shocked by the filth on it and on the inside of the filter screen. As I removed things I put them in the bowl. I washed everything with very soapy water. I polished the bore of the group with Bar Keeper's friend. I rinsed everything twice. I dumped out and rinsed the boiler twice with tap water. I checked everything and put everything back together. I polished outside of the copper boiler with Bar Keeper's Friend. I filled the machine with distilled water. I checked it once more and put it back in its place and connected it to the power and turned it on. Soon the pressurestat turned off. I ground a coffee that I always make with distilled water, and soon it was time to pull the shot. It was great! The lack of friction is amazing!

This is really timely information.
I had resolved yesterday that I would do something like this today, for similar reasons.
You certainly made my planned search very easy.
Thanks, Robert!

Every couple of weeks I take a dental pick, what is usually referred to as a scaler, and hock into the group gasket and pull it out along with the screen. Wash screen and wipe off piston face and cylinder. I take a trimmed down 1/2" natural bristle paint brush and clean out between the piston and the cylinder wall which cleans the lower seal.

The group seal is a standard o-ring so if it finally gets enough pick divots to leak it is easy and cheap to replace.

I just recently did my maintenance as well for my circa 1992 Europiccola.

I'm curious to know exactly what you guys include in your regular maintenance procedure? Not really asking about the daily clean up procedure but more about the medium long term maintenance procedure (although daily clean up routine can also be interesting).

Here is mine (similar to Robert's besides some minor details):

0. Empty machine of water.
1. Remove top 16mm nuts
2. Press lever all the way down which looses the shower screen.
3. Remove the pin that holds the piston (not the other one).
4. Press piston (and rubber ring and shower screen) out from above
5. Clean piston, shower screen in hot soapy water.
6. Clean group head inside with cotton buds, especially around the shower screen and portafilter holder.
7. Place a container under group head and descale boiler. Try to keep descaling water line below flowing out of grouphead but high enough to clean the boiler sufficiently. Any water that does come out will be caught in container. Dry the inside of grouphead if this happens directly to avoid damaging group head.
8. Grease the piston with silicone
9. Re-insert piston and shower screen and piston pin
10. Adjust top nuts so that the lever in lowest position just stays free of shower screen.
11. Open the bottom plate and check for rust (I have rust spots but it doesn't seem to spread. Not urgent for me but I do have to deal with this at some point).
12. Re attach the bottom plate.

I try to do this about every quarter, give or take a month. Are you guys doing anything more in your maintenance procedure?

Many thanks!

My procedure is very much like the one in the posting above this one. I have replaced the lever pins with rods with "acorn" nuts, so I can remove the handle in a few seconds, and this also makes the machine work more like a precision machine by removing the "play" in the handle. That speeds things up a lot.

I never need to descale because I never use tap water. There amount of Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ in coffee beans is far higher than the nastiest hard water. The counter ion in normal tap water for the Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ is bicarbonate, HCO₃⁻ . There is little bicarbonate in medium and light roast coffee. Thus one can get essentially the same result of using hard water by adding controlled concentrations of sodium or potassium bicarbonate to the water. The amount that is similar to most hard water is about 100 mg per litre. This also makes the water slightly alkaline, near the level for maximum stability of the oxide coat on copper! I always test new varieties of coffee first with pure distilled water. I evaluate the flavour and if it taste like it has been spiked with club soda or salad dressing, I try the 100 mg per litre bicarbonate water. Sometimes I opt for a level of bicarbonate between 0 and 100 mg/litre too. This permits tuning flavour.

oldtrackpants wrote:...
I'm curious to know exactly what you guys include in your regular maintenance procedure? Not really asking about the daily clean up procedure but more about the medium long term maintenance procedure (although daily clean up routine can also be interesting).

Here is mine (similar to Ray's besides some minor details):

0. Empty machine of water.
1. Remove top 16mm nuts
2. Press lever all the way down which looses the shower screen.
3. Remove the pin that holds the piston (not the other one).
4. Press piston (and rubber ring and shower screen) out from above
5. Clean piston, shower screen in hot soapy water.
6. Clean group head inside with cotton buds, especially around the shower screen and portafilter holder.
7. Place a container under group head and descale boiler. Try to keep descaling water line below flowing out of grouphead but high enough to clean the boiler sufficiently. Any water that does come out will be caught in container. Dry the inside of grouphead if this happens directly to avoid damaging group head.
8. Grease the piston with silicone
9. Re-insert piston and shower screen and piston pin
10. Adjust top nuts so that the lever in lowest position just stays free of shower screen.
11. Open the bottom plate and check for rust (I have rust spots but it doesn't seem to spread. Not urgent for me but I do have to deal with this at some point).
12. Re attach the bottom plate.

I try to do this about every quarter, give or take a month. Are you guys doing anything more in your maintenance procedure?

You might be doing it, but in addition to greasing the piston and seals I also put a very fine coating of Dow 111 on the cylinder wall.

I don't descale that often if I don't need it, but when I do descale I fill the boiler to the top. Heat the boiler with the descaling solution in and the steam valve open, and tip in a pitcher. When water comes out of the steam valve I shut it down, both heat and steam valve. Let it sit as needed and then dump.

Thank you once again for your talented insight. Have you thought about posting a video of the process to YouTube? I would benefit greatly from the visuals. It is the way I learned to fix my dryer and dishwasher.