Hi everyone!

I bought a Faemina two years ago(!) and was quite pleased with how it seemed after arrival. Everything worked fine and i even made a post about my new acquisition here I did notice a smal piston seal leak, but it went away pretty fast.

One week later the leak was back and way worse. Over the next few months I tried to disassemble the machine to get to the piston seal. Everything went fine until I started trying to remove the sylinder. The thing is stuck beyond my wildest dreams. I tried using food oil hoping it would loosen the piston. I used the method Dough from OE outlined here with an hammer and a bent and blunt screw driver. Making sure to do it CCW. After having soaked it for two weeks and stil no movement I gave up trying to be food safe and tried the normal rust penetrating stuff we had lying around the workshop. After soaking in that for another week and stil no go I made a socket out of a steel pipe that would fit (quite good, not perfect) in all four holes of the piston. I tried Using that with a variable length of lever arm to get more torque. At most I had one meter lever arm going from the socket that I had a friend hold in place using a drill press.


Nothing...

My final attempt was soaking it in a mixture of automatic transmission fluid and acetone. After soaking for a week and stil no go I gave up. I packed the faemina away, to annoyed to even think about my failure.

Today, 18 months later I found the Faemina in my attic. I'm still annoyed and unable to remove that sylinder. Can anyone think of something I can try to get this thing back to life. I'm desperate!

WOW! And it still won't budge? Give it a good couple of wacks with the hammer and awl in a CW direction to break loose, then again CCW. Try that a couple of times, backwards and forwards. Perhaps someone tried to remove it previously and permanently damaged the cylinder and threads? Can you post a picture showing the cylinder?

I have tried both directions. Probably quite hard in my frustration. Even though I haven't been super gentle with the piston, most of the wear was present before I even started my attempt to remove it. Clearly someone have at one point tried (and possibly failed) to remove the piston.



I should note that I'm trying to remove the very topmost piston seal in the group. The one right under the lever attachment.

If you've got no leaks at the cylinder, then leave it. Since you've already removed the shower screen, just remove the piston and replace all other seals. The one you mentioned that leaks is the rod seal.

Would you care to elaborate on the procedure of changing the rod seal without removing the cylinder? I was obviously under the assumption that I had to remove the cylinder to get to the rod seal(!) You are semi blowing my mind right now!

That's the bottom of the piston you're seeing when you remove the shower screen. Removal of the cylinder is necessary to replace the cylinder gasket and to leave the shower screen undisturbed. Since you've removed the shower screen, the piston can slide through. Compress the piston with a clamp, remove the pins, and the whole assembly should come out with no interference with the cylinder. If the cylinder doesn't leak, than you're golden.

Francesco has instructions that seems to show pulling the piston without having to remove the cylinder. Only shows assembly, but removing would probably be just reversing the order. http://www.francescoceccarelli.eu/Faida ... ne_eng.htm

All I need is a carjack and special tool for the sleeve...removing both the sleeve and cylinder is childs play...

Care to try your special tool on this one?

Fantastic!

I'll try that this weekend. I always just assumed that the piston would sitt on top of the cylinder. I'll report back over the weekend. Getting excited!