Ive been using this gaggia classic for at least a year now with no issues, but recently there's been a problem where water just refuses the flow through the grouphead. It still comes out the steam arm just fine, but when i switch over to the group, the pump starts sounding very loud and upset. I'm not sure what the problem is and my searching hasn't turned up much, any help is appreciated

EDIT: i solved the problem, not sure what the root cause was but i replaced the pump and cleaned everything inside the grouphead and it seems to be functioning as good or better than before. Thanks for all the tips and suggestions, you've all been very helpful

Dose ur steam arm dispense water or steam?

Seems pretty early but. . . .you might need to replace the pump. If that is the case it is fairly easy.

checkwhatsleft wrote:Dose ur steam arm dispense water or steam?

Both, which is probably the most confusing part

When my GC pump failed, water/steam continued to come out of the steam wand until the boiler was dry. Watch out for that while you're testing because a dry boiler can be really bad for it.

It's been a couple years since I had to replace my pump, but I remember mine going quiet instead of really loud when it failed.

A really loud pump is a pump drawing a vacuum or full of air. Make sure there isn't a blockage before the pump, for example pinched silicon hose.

May be best to disconnect and insulate the wires to the low thermostat so that the elements aren't heating a potentially underfilled boiler (not that it's that bad in those external element machines, but still).

Then you can successfully test that the water wand is still able to produce pumped water, not just release steam-pressure driven water.
Once proven that the pump works (creates substantial flow through the steam wand against enough backpressure that you can not stop it by putting your thumb over the hole) then you can go llooking for the blockage. It's probably at the orifice in the brew valve. It clogs with the oxidation crap that those aluminum boilers shed when the water balance isn't perfect.

February's thread on this has pictures and everything.
Gaggia Classic Pro frequent solenoid valve clogging- disappointed

Press the brew button and turn the steam knob on, then the steam arm should've dispense water only, let it runs for 20-30 seconds, then turn the knob off(do not turn off the brew button), let's see does the group head dispense water or not.

Loud buzz noise from the pump, it usually was due to the air pocket in the water inlet line, and as we all know, it is good at priming water in normal frequency not the air, however workaround is to have the pump activate at short burst frequency to solve that, which is the water dispense from the steam arm, this method works on many machines(single boiler and thermo-block), even superautomatic as well.

If it will still dispense water through the steam wand when you press the brew switch and the steam valve is open, then I'm inclined to say your issue is a stuck or clogged solenoid valve. If not, then it's the pump - either a seal has failed (this is apparently quite common) or maybe a tube is clogged -though presumably you'd have noticed this.