How to fit an E61 shower screen on a Zodiaco / Futurmat / Lambro / President group

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dominico
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#1: Post by dominico »

The Faema "Zodiaco" group is a fantastic lever group with a weak point, its shower screen.

Unfortunately the E61 style shower screens don't fit the Zodiaco by default, they are too narrow to fit properly around the piston chamber.

Fortunately, the E61 style shower screen (and gasket) can be modified with less than an hour's worth of effort to fit a Zodiaco group.
The following is a process I basically learned from Pascal (Zeb) and adapted slightly to make it more straightforward.

General Overview:
We will widen the diameter of the sleeve of the shower screen by using a vice and a double filter basket to stretch it out a bit.

We will then grind down the inner surface of the gasket to fit properly.

Insert and pull delicious shots.

You will need:
Paper and pencil
E61 Shower Screen (HQ, IMS, etc)
E61 group gasket (standard rubber or cafelat silicone, either 8mm or 8.5mm depending on your preference)
Double filter basket (use an el cheapo one, it could get damaged by this process)
Vice(s)
blocks of wood
Dremel / Sandpaper / File (or other precision sanding / grinding apparatus)

Pre-setup:
Remove the old shower screen and gasket.
Removing the old screen should be easy. For me, it would fall off on its own every other time I flushed the group. Otherwise lightly prying at with a flathead screwdriver should do the trick. Failing that, Try threatening it or looking at it funny. Wait 5 minutes, it may in that time just fall off on its own.
Removing the gasket can be done in a number of ways, I pry at it with a marmalade knife (a completely smooth butter knife) so it comes out completely intact.

Reshaping the shower screen:
The trick here is to widen the shower screen wide enough so that the inside of the screen can touch flush against the piston, but not to go much wider than that.
This basically requires you to stretch the screen some, test, stretch some more, test again, etc.

Put the filter basket inside the shower screen, put blocks of wood on the top and bottom to avoid damage, and vice away. The bottom of the filter basket will increase the diameter of the shower screen sleeve.

If you have a mounted vice in your workshop this section should be straightforward. If not this could get a little tricky as I had a hard time initially getting the basket and shower screen to stay completely vertical, they kept wanting to slip to one side. I solved this by using two vices simultaneously.


Once the shower screen goes flush against the piston, you are ready to move on to gasket shaping.

Reshaping the gasket:
Stretching the shower screen sleeve like that caused it to go more conical than it was before. If you put the gasket on and slide it all the way up the gasket becomes too wide to be able to fit inside the group. Reshaping the inner diameter of the gasket to be conical fixed the problem. Rubber is easily sanded, even if it smells terrible while doing so and creates a bunch of messy "rubber powder". The grinding attachement on a dremel works well for shaping, but fine grit sand paper will also work. The silicone gaskets sold by Cafelat work better, they don't smell when you sand/grind them and the resulting "dust" is more easily cleaned.
Take your gasket and trace around it on a piece of paper. This will be your template. You will be done when you can put the gasket over your shower screen and it still fits within that circle.



Look at the angle of your shower screen sleeve. Attempt to crate that angle on the inner diameter of the gasket with your dremel (or other grinding apparatus). I made a small mark on the "top" part of the gasket to help me see when I'd made a full revolution with my grinder.


Handling the "lip" of the shower screen sleeve:
At the very top of the screen sleeve it flares out a bit for the gasket to sit flush against, presumably so that the gasket hold the screen in place. Due to slight height differences between the Zodiac and the E61 that flared lip means the gasket won't sit all the way up in the group. An easy fix for that is to grind away a little section around the top inner part of the gasket to give a place for that lip to set. It is much less effort and less risky in my opinion that trying to grind away the metal lip itself. Gaskets are cheap and much easier to shape than the metal.


Voila: Once the assembled product fits inside that circle you drew you should be good to install. I installed it by putting it in a portafilter and locking in the portafilter.


Here with some blank flushes. I don't know what an E61 blank flush is supposed to look like so I'm looking to you to tell me if this is expected or if the water distribution is off kilter for some reason.
Next Steps? For me, do the other group! I have an IMS screen and some cafelat silicone gaskets: now that I've gotten it to work with the normal stuff I'm going to do the same with those. I think the IMS screen will be a better option for these groups for maintenance, and since this solution requires "modding" a gasket I'd rather do it once on a silicone gasket than once every 6 months or so on rubber ones.
UPDATE

Both of my groups now have IMS 200 screens with silicone 8.5mm group gaskets. I am pleased as punch, better dispersion, easy to clean.

One of the 5 installations I have done thus far started falling out after pulling a few shots. We determined that it was because the gasket wasn't sitting fully up inside the group. The fix wound up being to stretch the dispersion screen in the vice slightly more and further reshape the gasket a bit to have the dispersion screen sit a little lower in the gasket. This did the trick.


Thanks,
-Dom
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vberch
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#2: Post by vberch »

Great job, Dominick!! Let me know if you would like to do one more after you are done with your second group. :)

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zeb
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#3: Post by zeb »

Yes great job Dominick ! And many thanks for all the people this will help.

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vberch
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#4: Post by vberch replying to zeb »

Pascal, I sent you a PM.

bakafish
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#5: Post by bakafish »

Thanks Dominick. I have done on my IMS E61 200 IM. Seems a little better than the stock shower screen. :D

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dominico (original poster)
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#6: Post by dominico (original poster) »

I just installed my IMS 200 IM shower screen today as well, with a cafelat silicone gasket, 8.5mm.



I found the silicone gasket easier to shape and a lot less smelly than shaping the rubber one. The gasket will probably last the lifetime of the shower screen too, so cheers for only having to shape one gasket!

As for the IMS shower screen itself I'm super impressed with how it performs on my President, especially compared to the original Zodiaco screens.

As for this procedure, I've now done this twice, and screwed it up 0 times. Compared to a lot of the other DIY projects I dive into in the coffee world I'd call that pretty fool proof.
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dominico (original poster)
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#7: Post by dominico (original poster) »

A video of my two shower screens in action:
https://bit.ly/3N1bhPR
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dmccallum
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#8: Post by dmccallum »

Firstly, great method. I had considered previously using some sort of English Wheel method to stretch one of these out, but this is actually quite simple.

Second, this method can also be used to stretch an e61 screen to fit a Gaggia group where the lip is a little oversize (some/many/most(?) Gaggia lever heads will accept an unmodified e61 screen).

On looking through my basement for something to repeat this, I happened on a set of hole drills I had and found that a 60mm (2,3/8") hole drill would be perfect.

The pictures do most of the talking, but an advantage of using something like this means you can get a scretched screen without a (or at least reduced) cone profile. I've used Nuova Ricambi (526100) screens in this example.




My grouphead spring press has proved to be quite versatile. I can do Gaggia and Faema series3 heads, and now also e61 screens.


I had used a 50mm (1,31/32") hole drill to get access to the Gaggia head top nut, but it also fits the outer edge of the shower screen perfectly.


Simply remove the 1x1/4" brass bar, compress the hole saw and out pops your stretched screen with a new internal diameter of exactly 58mm.


All done with just a dremel and a file.

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dominico (original poster)
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#9: Post by dominico (original poster) »

A hole drill, I wish I had thought of that!

How's the screen working out for you?
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dmccallum
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#10: Post by dmccallum »

As far as using one on my Gaggia goes, I pulled a couple of shots last night and it's working well. I used a drum sander bit on my dremel to take some material off the inside edge of the group gasket.
I do have to address the issue of the excess space between the Gaggia piston and the inside surface of the shower screen (results in extended dribbling after pulling a shot on both groups). Getting a filler disk machined up to replace the std Gaggia shower screen that attaches to the bottom of the piston, so will see how that goes.

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