I've had my Quickmill Achille for almost five years now. I know others have had issues with this machine, but I have been very lucky with mine. Just a little maintenance, occasional lubing the gaskets, and it has really behaved itself.

Then about six weeks ago the lever started "skipping" (as you release the lever from the cocked position, it would jump as if the water was passing the first gasket. My supposition is that is exactly what was happening)

I started searching for piston gaskets, and found that Cafelat sells them, and has a great video showing you how to install. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbHiIr3GCMs

I got a set and replaced my rubber seals. (I had to gouge out the degraded rubber gaskets. I didn't take a photo of them, I should have. I used some plastic pry levers sold to replace car trim to remove them, so I wouldn't damage the brass.) After having been chastised roundly on this group for using too much grease in the past, I was very spare with my Dow 111 as I put on the new gaskets.

I heated up the machine, and took a pull, and it skipped again! I was surprised, and contacted Cafelat. They (Paul) responded almost immediately, mentioning that Quickmill has some variance in the groups, and he would post me some slightly larger gaskets that they had.

So I easily installed these:



and reinstalled the group.

I heated up the machine, and took a pull. As I pulled down the lever, the back of the machine lifted up off the counter. Yipes! Those of you who know the Achille know it is a heavy machine! (over 38 kg!). I let the machine cool down, pulled off screen and added more lube from below. (That sounds dirty, but it is not). I made a couple more pulls, and each time it pulled off the counter.

SO, being the brilliant Mining Engineer that I am (thank you, thank you) I decided to pull the group again, and replace the two UPPER gaskets with the original, smaller diameter (dimensions coming) gaskets.

I have been pulling this group for a while, and had no problem. With these bigger gaskets, though, whew - that was hard.

It took me about 20 minutes to get to this point:



and then another 20 minutes to get the whole thing out.

But I did, and made the swap.

To give you an idea of the relative size of the gaskets, I took this photo:



(smaller silicone gaskets to the left, big ones in the middle, rubber gaskets purchased from Espresso Parts as a backup on the right. The big gaskets were 7.9 mm thick, 52.8 mm in diameter at their widest point (the bottom) and an internal diameter of 40.5 mm. The other gaskets were 7 mm thick, 51 mm in diameter and 40.5 internal diameter. I am no expert with a micrometer, and the one I bought doesn't have a denier, so some of this was approximation.)

But after all this, success! I am very happy with the results, and very happy for the support from Cafelat.

Dan,
Reading your post is like deja vu. See my post "Cafelat seals on Londinium L1".
I was not liking the original seals on the L1, and the custom seals were only a bit better. I installed the Cafelat seals and had slipping/skipping after a few weeks. Adding more lube and they are working great. Paul is sending me the bigger seals. It will be interesting to see if I have the same problem as you!
Rob

Hi Rob,

I would strongly recommend starting with only one or two of the bigger gaskets. One solved my problem, and I cannot stress how hard it was to get the piston out with all three of the bigger seals.

Dan

That's where I put mine.

Seems to make sense

About a week, with no skips.

But, no, I am not absolutely convinced. But I needed a solution that wouldn't pull the back of the Achille off the counter when I pulled a shot, and this works.

I'll let you know how it goes over time. (DO you have your new, bigger gaskets yet? You may not have the lifting off the counter problem. But I can tell you, it was painful to pull the piston with those three big gaskets)

You may have noticed I bought some rubber gaskets from Espresso Parts (they are really cheap) as a back-up in case this doesn't work.

Dan, do you think some of the problem of the skipping was with having 2 springs in the group?

BTW, do you get any spring rub causing a groaning noise when you pull the lever? I know it has nothing to do with the seal but I am just curios.