Does the wood handle on the lever arm spin in place on anyone else's? Mine does but it might be from my wrestling match with getting the lever arm out of the socket it sits in when transporting the machine cross country; I can't remember if it did before or not. If it's not supposed to should I be worried about the handle coming off? The wood handle doesn't show any threat of pulling off the lever arm but it would be disastrous if it were to happen in a high pressure pull. Sent an email to Wouter a few days ago but no response yet.

EDIT: Wouter got back to me. If anyone is interested in how to take off the wooden handle, you would need to turn to the left and pull at the same time. There's an expansion plug inside that should grab when you do this. I took mine off, screwed it back on and no more spin! Problem solved

mind does not spin!

naked-portafilter wrote:Finding the bug/as comparison would be great to go back to the original piston unit for some shots.

Gabor, just wanted to let you know that I finally got around to this. I took out the piston, changed out the green gasket because the piston was tending to leak when the unit was cold, and then after relubing and cleaning everything up put the piston back. No more leaking and back to being able to pull 40 g shots. I have no idea what was going on and don't see why the gasket would have had anything to do with the low shot output, but all's good again!

Great news Ryan! Thanks for the feedback. The piston unit is a unique but very simple construction. Most probably lubing was the key.

I received the lids from Wouter some days ago. We will adjust them for the kit this weekend hopefully.

paborden wrote:For those who are interested, modified my setup to accommodate my scale AND my taller cups.

All it took was a 2in by 2in piece of copper pipe (PVC would have also worked honestly) and some velcro. Velcro on the top of the pipe and bottom of the scale to keep the scale in place, and a little velcro on the bottom of the pipe just to even it out, and keep it from scratching the inside of the Strietman base.

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Great idea! Cups have to be 2 inches tall (not many out there that short) to fit with my scale. Great solution!

RyanP wrote:Gabor, just wanted to let you know that I finally got around to this. I took out the piston, changed out the green gasket because the piston was tending to leak when the unit was cold, and then after relubing and cleaning everything up put the piston back. No more leaking and back to being able to pull 40 g shots. I have no idea what was going on and don't see why the gasket would have had anything to do with the low shot output, but all's good again!

Mine also leaked when cold but it didn't bother me because it fully functioned when hot (nearly 50gr of volume). I drained it when flushing after turning it off and put a cup underneath for the last bit of water. Yesterday I took out the green gasket, left it in Cafiza for 2 hours and put lube on all sides and it doesn't leak anymore. The gasket looked to be in good shape so I didn't want to replace it already. I normally take the piston out every other week and lube the gaskets on the outside. Lubing it on all sides seems to be the solution when it's starting to leak when cold.

It bothered me because emptying out the group after every use to prevent an overflow of water in the driptray is just a waste. Not a problem since changing out the gasket, though.

This may be a dumb question, but do these seals degrade appreciably with time? I was buying an 18g basket from Strietman and thought about adding in the service kit, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea to buy now if I might not need them for years to come.

My original piston is over a year old and still has the original seals on it and they're in good shape.

Descaled my CT1 last night and this was after my first shot this morning.