It is time for another restoration as my Gaggia is languishing for its replacement heating element and I want to keep my hands busy. With the recent purchase of the Faema Zodiaco I originally thought I would use it as parts for the President, but now I am going to use it a practice machine before doing the same thing to the President. The reason I am able to do this is because the two machines are very similar in layout and design with the body panels off. The biggest difference is the design of the boiler. The President has two large gaskets holding the boiler ends with 12 bolts each, while the Zodiaco boiler is one piece. Stuff like the water level, pressure gauge, water fill valve, etc are identical.

What will happen is as I go through steps to get the Zodiaco running I will emulate similarly to the President, and if it goes well, both machines will be running within a short span of each other. It also saves on shipping costs since I will be ordering parts for both at the same time.

Initially I was hesitant in buying another machine last year after already purchasing my Bosco, Gaggia Tell, and home lever machines, but I have decided to fall fully into Lever Espresso Machine Acquisition Syndrome (aka LEMAS). In the process I hope to learn useful things I can use beyond espresso, specifically in the handyman trade. I also want to continue expanding my collection and ensure they are all running machines.

Some before pictures. The seller was literally five minutes from where I lived in Italy and he delivered it to me at a Gas Station/Hangout that is managed by a friend. A few things were missing, notably a portafilter (the other one damaged as well), the manometer, and most of the gas flap on the front panel. He did provide a replacement portafilter and manometer. For the price I paid I thought it was fair enough.





The pipe layout on the President is nearly identical to the Zodiaco so far. Loosening them has been simple and no extraordinary efforts were required outside of a wrench and mallet. I can already see the real issues will crop up with the loosening of the boiler cap bolts, 24 of them to be exact. I know there is a method of taking these out even if they are fused to the aluminum shims but I need to remember where I keep the link on doing this. The heating element was already removed and eventually I will also take out the two rusty flange bolts. Since this was a gas machine the element has never been used, albeit there is scale on it. It is a 2kW element 220V. Looking in the element hole there is still water held in the boiler!!! I am surprised it has never evaporated completely but I guess it could be worse...It does not smell grungy.





I already took off the upper part of the groups to compare to the Zodiaco groups. The springs will definitely be replaced and some cleanup is required. The flow valve and shut off valve are completely fused on both groups and some heat will be required to take them off.




The body panels are in very good condition. I will disassemble the lower parts as they have corrosion on them and need to be cleaned off. I will likely keep the glass back in original condition, but if I have enough funds laying around I may purchase a replica of a different colour eventually. In terms of chrome items the only parts I consider need rechroming are the levers, but I may purchase replica stainless steel ones if the price is right. For now I will leave them be.



I sometimes consider myself a little overzealous in documenting everything I do, but I realize that this may prove useful down the road so I will continue nonetheless being this comprehensive in my process.

The water is removed from the boiler after some tipping and a bucket. The water was really not that bad looking but would not recommend drinking it.


I found the thread on HB discussing the boiler bolt removal process, kindly provided by macgaggia and his blog on a 1 group President he did a while back, shown here https://macernst.zenfolio.com/p50678023 ... #h435227d5. I had a small drill vise laying around so I tried that. I used two large nuts to lay against the aluminum shim and started cranking away. It worked for the first one but involved some heat and extra leverage to remove.





I thought I was on a roll! But then the second bolt I tried erased any preconceived notion I might have been able to take off a lid today. First the hinge on the vise snapped off from excessive force, but I had a pipe wrench to continue trying. I probably should have stopped and thought about it but I still went on. Nothing I tried was able to force the bolt to yield, so I stopped only after some labor to assess what to do from here. The vise I paid maybe 15 bucks for it at Harbor Freight so that just means I need something of higher quality in the future.



If most of the bolts are like this then I will need to take a hack saw and start sawing the gasket then try the process again. If the bolts are still stuck then I will need to cut through the bolts as well and see if I can still salvage the shims after this. This is a rude awakening compared to what I needed to do with the Zodiaco

This may also encourage me enough to purchase a MAPP torch for high heat application.

Ok here is my first actual question. I went out and took my 6" bench vise to replace the smaller vise in removing the boiler bolts. I was able to take out the bolt that stumped the smaller one but the amount of force required to do it just seems so excessively high. Is it really requiring this much force to loosen the bolts? I had to take a mallet and put a piece of pipe over the vise lock handle to loosen the bolt from the shims. I think I will actually be sore tomorrow, and I am not going to continue doing this without a proper plan. In the process I have taken off more hex nuts, and out of 12 nuts two have snapped off on the heating element side. The remaining ones are too awkward to reach while the boiler is still on the frame.

I noticed that on the heating element side the bolts are the regular M8 bolts, but the bolts on the other side are a smaller size. I realized this at first when I realized my 14mm socket wrench was to big to fit on the hex nuts, rather it uses 13mm.

I keep posting multiples times today but I just get excited and want to share when I make progress! I decided to tackle the boiler issue after taking it off the frame.

At this point the only things needed to be taken off the frame is the right steam wand and the water sight. Both are pretty stuck so I am letting them soak in some penetrating oil and some heat afterwards at some point.



I also got the bottom group sections apart including the shutoff valve and flow valves with some more heat. What is interesting to note is the hex nuts holding the groups to the frame could be nearly undone by hand and in the process I actually unscrewed the flange bolts themselves, which appear to be in good condition (better than the flange bolts on my Gaggia I can tell you that!). The gaskets were not stuck at all to the groups either. Perhaps they were serviced pretty close to when this machine ended its initial use?


Besides the boiler ends and the mentioned parts on the frame I am just about ready to move into the cleaning phase of this restoration. I will also be taking account what parts I will need to rebuild the machine. It is pretty strange that some parts like the pipes and groups were able to come off so easily if not easier than the Zodiaco. This positive is bashed by the stuck boiler ends and their 22 remaining bolts to remove. I think a MAPP torch will help me well.

I tried a different method for the boiler bolts using c-clamps and a hammer. The clamps hold the aluminum rings when I strike the bolt with the hammer. I was able to remove two more bolts this way but the others are stuck fast. I am now letting the boiler sit vertically and spraying penetrating oil into one side every few days for the bolts. At this point all of the nuts are taken off or snapped off. I have a total of four snapped bolts on the heating element side.



The frame is stripped except for the drain box and the lower water sight nut. The machine feet came off without issue using a 10mm deep socket wrench, but one of the feet is still attached due to the drain box blocking access. There is a cap covering the drain box thread, and it is quite stuck right now. Just to confirm this unscrews normally counter clockwise correct? I was able to move it a little bit initially but then it became stuck. The stuck nuts are soaking in penetrating oil as well right now.



The front panel is in nice condition. I hopefully can wash off the rust from the frame on the back and then use autosol to polish it up. I hope to keep the original stickers on it. It is recommended to give the panels a soap and water rinse first right (chromed or Stainless Steel)?

I was stuck with the drain box thread once, too. The box is aluminum, very soft, it has a square at the middle, betweeen box and thread, with this square it is sitting tight in the steel frame.So: do not try to turn the drain box when holding the nut!
On one of my Faemas, the nut was sitting immovable on a rotten alu thread, no way to get it loosened - so I finally sacrificed the nut using a nut splitter to save the box. I the had to recut the thread and went on with a new nut.

Fun project! Enjoy!

Patience won out in the end for the boiler lid. I used pentrating oil for the bolts and trying again I was able to take off one of two lids. 10 bolts were taken out but I had to cut the bottom two bolts since the vice could not be positioned properly. I can hopefully clean up the scratches on the flange bolts and the aluminum rings were not damaged. I still need to take out the bolt bits sawed in half.





The other side is soaking now.


The amount of effort to do this was quite insane, using a 3 foot pipe over the vise clamp rod. Once again I'll be sore in the morning

Those HX connections and boiler configuration reminds of the VFA 2 group leva I had. Two much unobtainium so it went to the metal yard. I did not like those connections as I found them very difficult to line up without leaking.

Good luck on your project!

Thank you! Looking at my HX tubes they appear to be soldered to the boiler. The are two connections on the bottom where u-bended pipes connect the thermosyphon to the boilers externally rather than the more modern boiler where this occurs internally (ie there is a hole in each hx tube inside the boiler)

IamOiman wrote: there is a hole in each hx tube inside the boiler

This is the working principle of the Faema-T1-groups, it is called "open thermosiphon". The hole makes the circular flow to and from the group possible and makes the Faema groups so stable temperature-wise.
The first Londiniums tried to copy this principle, but in a different way, and they had to leave this path again, if I remember correctly.