After about a week in transit from France my newest acquisition popped up on my doorstep as I was taking a SolidWorks class. This is a French 1957 one group Faema Marte that I purchased from Pascal/zeb after a few months of waiting for my funds allocated to espresso to build up. The shipping process itself was mostly painless, but some damage did occur when I received it. I actually did not notice it at first because I was staring at the back grille for a minute...





Taking out all of the packing material and the individually wrapped pieces, I took a closer inspection and discovered the dent located on the side of the lower skirt. This crate originally had wood feet attached to the bottom, and they were missing when the machine arrived. Seeing the scoot marks on the side of the crate, what I will surmise (but not guarantee) happened is the feet were removed and the box was turned on its side to move it more easily during transit. As I like to say, sh*t happens but it is not an irrepairable issue.



This is so far the only visible damage I saw, but I will be keeping my eyes sharp for anything else when I start this project. I took the machine and parts inside after this discovery. In the purchase I asked to borrow the sleeve tool used to unscrew the sleeve in the group. If it does not work/the sleeve is super stuck I can at least use it as a model to fashion a more robust tool.




The dent did nothing to dampen my excitement with this Marte, it looks awesome and the curved group is special. I forgot to take a pic inside but I did remove the wobbler weight and pin from the boiler, and am providing a pic from the seller of the boiler. There is no asbestos insulation, originally there was fiberglass. It is the standard 10 liter/big size. The only thing I am 100% confident is missing from this machine is the neon light assembly.








I am not sure when I'll start digging into this machine but right now it will hang on the dining table. Specifics of this machine is January 1957 (at least according to the manometer), number 24014. The last thing I'll show is the Pavoni for Scale metric.

beer&mathematics wrote:Was this the closest thing to a home lever before home levers?

I'd say the Mercurio or Venere were more appropriate for home use, the Marte is double the size of the 5 liter Mercurio's boiler, and the Mercurio's boiler is 3 liters bigger than the Venere's 2 liter boiler

So actually I decided to proceed with disassembly! I will be a little extra detailed because this machine is actually fairly complex to take apart.

With the steam wands off I slipped off the drip tray. It is not secured by fasteners but rather two pins that go on the two feet (so one pin each). This exposes the lower part of the machine. Note the left foot has crossed out numbers, as it appears like zeroes were stamped over the original number.





The group cover comes off when two acorn hex bolts are unscrewed with a 10mm wrench. There is a pin in the rear of the group to help secure the cover. The upper group is secured by four M6 slotted hex bolts, and taking them off allowed me to slip the upper group off the machine. I measured the seals and this is indeed the 53mm big bore. The piston sleeve appears to be plated.








The group does not have the flow valve on the top, just a shutoff valve on the bottom part of the neck. In its place is a big fat chrome cap fitting that came off with some effort with a 26mm socket wrench. Loosening the four cap nuts reveals the M8 studs, but the group would not come off. After some coaxing via a wedge inserted into the group gasket the group popped off.





Going back to the cup tray, it comes off via four chromed slotted screws, revealing the dirty interior. It is a network of brackets to secure the body panels and wobbler weight, and they can be adjusted to fit.






Taking off the side panels involves removing two front bracket pieces. After this the brackets mentioned earlier need to be loosened to get around the small stud that secures each panel to the front of the machine. The numbers on the panels are different from the one on the exterior. I am suspecting this machine was assembled with on hand parts rather than having each piece specifically made for it.






Taking off the first panel reveals a little bit of fiberglass insulation still present, along wtih a mystery machine screw that was hiding among it. How strange!



Going to the other side with the same process reveals a rather interesting picture. The pstat ampule was forced out of its bracket, thankfully intact. I placed it back to show how it would normally look, but it must have jostled loose in transit! The boiler bolts all look really rusted, and in fact one appears to be a replacement bolt because it is a bigger size and is at an angle, indicating an onsite tap and drill session.





The water sight glass popped off too with some finicking. The upper piece was a little stuck so it needed some adjustments to take out the glass without breaking it. The manometer came off with a 17mm wrench. At this point the Marte was light enough for me to move it by myself downstairs for further disassembly. To unscrew the upper sight glass fitting I used wood supports because the boiler connection has a long neck that could be damaged from the force needed to unscrew it. Taking off this fitting allowed me to remove the backsplash.





In preparation for removing the boiler bolts I partially disassembled the pstat such that just the bellows and a bracket were remaining since I am using a MAP Pro torch in this process and do not want to damage the ampule. In this process I am also removing the support brackets, some of them like the standoff nuts needed heat to loosen. The front grille has an upper frame piece that I eventually could remove with some coaxing. Many of the screws were rusty but thankfully not too rusty for me to remove or loosen.





I attempted to remove six of the eight boiler bolts and the two heating element bolts. It was a long process of heating each bolt, waiting for it to cool, then attempting to loosen it. So far I have two snapped boiler bolts and one snapped heating element bolt, although looking the remaining bolt in the lid I could understand why it sheared off: there was almost nothing left! The last two bolts on the bottom of the lid remain, and I will wait to remove the boiler from the frame before working on those two. The group studs were also removed in the process without issue, and the group gasket popped off in the process.






I stopped for the night. The lower valve fittings are super stuck right now and I will need to think of a way to loosen them. The group sleeve tool is ready for use after removing the group gasket, but I am letting the sleeve soak in penetrating oil right now before I make an attempt. I also discovered the mystery screw goes to one of the front backsplash brackets after realizing the replacement was a regular screw! Oh I also found the original power cable hiding inside too.

Continuing onwards today, I decided to flip the Marte upside down to access the feet and to undo the remaining two boiler bolts. I have the Marte near the edge as the grill pieces would be holding the weight otherwise (ie they are taller than the frame by a bit). They were the first things I took off, and while the grille machine screws were a little rusty none of them snapped. There are two boiler elbows on the bottom that each have a capped off hole. They both came off surprisingly without too much force. There is oddly a little tiny threaded hole on the outside, their purpose unclear to me (besides perhaps boiler alignment?). The feet came off too, one of them interferes with the inlet valve if I did not do this. Three M8 studs secure the feet to the frame each.








Going back to the lid, I did multiple heating cycles but only one of them unscrewed out of the remaining two. Thus I have four snapped bolts, one retapped hole, and five (relatively) undamaged holes on the boiler and lid. I suppose it could be worse! There was not too much calcium deposits inside, most of it came loose during the removal of the boiler lid. I got really lucky with unscrewing a few of the bolts, many of them were rusted thin where the gasket lies.







At this point I need to wait for some penetrating oil to soak the last valve piece after I heated it up. I have more wooden supports so I don't stress the little boiler arm too much. Then I can begin to remove the boiler from the frame and wrap up the initial disassembly.

Coming back about an hour after soaking the last valve yielded under the big wrench and a tug. The wooden support worked very well in preventing movement of the boiler arm.

Before attempting to remove the boiler-frame slotted screws I elected to remove the lower skirt and frame. It is secured in the front by four M6 bolts and in the rear by the two supporting rods. In the process of removing one of the two rods I discovered it had sheared off. On a post mortem inspection it was apparant the location where it sheared was already partially worn through as indicated by the rust. This is where owning a lathe would be handy to make a new one! It measures 38mm on the bottom thread, 237mm on the unthreaded body, and 45mm in length for the top thread (total length of 320mm). The gas shield slipped off after removing the skirt. The lower skirt will be a complete b**ch to remove the rusted screws. I literally broke a screwdriver when attempting to remove one, so they are all quite stuck.








I was able to remove three of the four slotted screws on the boiler-frame connection. The last one is super stuck even after multiple heat cycles so I am letting it soak in penetrating oil for now. I have two tools on order: the square head for the lower radiator fitting with the square hole and a pin spanner wrench to see if the piston can unscrew without much force (other methods may need to be approached if this is not the case).




I now have no idea about the date of the machine. Taking off the right foot revealed a missing 1 from the exterior serial number, so it is in fact 124014. Looking on the side body panels I read 125190 and 123082. The backsplash has a number of 2362. The feet have crossed out numbers. All of these different numbers on the different pieces seems to tell me this machine was cobbled together with parts on hand. I have not found a date stamped on the boiler either.