I merged your 4 other threads on your repair efforts into this one. It's easier to help you if your questions are in one place

I usually use Molykote 111 but only have Lubri-Film Plus at hand at the moment. It's specified maximum temperate is 210F/98C. Will it work to lubricate the plunger gasket of a Flair espresso machine?

Hello forum, So i've been posting here the last couple of days, because i wanted to repair og service my Izzo Alex Duetto 3, which i love alot. Now it started with steam coming out of safety valve. So i bought a new and switched it. At the same time i changed the fill probe, cause it was

In fairness, unless the brew boiler is drained, then nothing should have happened really, so the no water connection "might" be a coincidence. the steam boiler elements won't even come on if empty (unless someone has modded someting)

I had an interesting experience. I was using a spirograph WDT device, but not on a perfectly level surface. Well, the grounds were not level to the basket. Even though I tamped with a leveling tamper, the shots were still noticeably one-sided. Moral of the story: grounds distribution >> tamping

Same The beautiful tamper I bought on Etsy sits on my accessories shelf just for decoration. The PV has a small diameter

That's possible. Old roasts tend to have less crema than fresh roast. The expiration date shown may not be faithfully chosen. Any roast older than 1 - 1.5 month is... "over the hill", "past its prime". That's why I do my own roasting so that I know what the real expiration

Air bubbles coming out the anit-vac valve and all your other symptoms point to a not-sealing anti-vac. Could be what cmin has experienced and the o-ring has failed. But before you resort to disassembly, (even though it is super easy), give it a tap with something hard like a small hammer... a tap, not a smash, or several taps, in

Boiler water/steam is either leaking through the brew valve (which you might see as movement in the tube moving toward the center of the boiler) or past the pipe in the boiler (which you might see as movement moving away from the center of the boiler or perhaps just escaping out through the group). You could remove/inspect/clean and reinstall

It's a dual boiler machine. It's going to heat an empty brew boiler and destroy its element if you do something like that. The pop was probably the element rupturing and the smoke was probably from what-all got burnt. I agree with Dave C's "Open it and see how bad it is" opinion