This will be a separate topic for my President that I fixed up in 2020. It has brazes failing on the boiler that is leeching hard deposits, which is what informed me to take a closer look inside. This is an early project (my second one ever), and there are additional things I want to redo as a result besides the boiler repair. For example I used RTV for the water level pipe that did not want to seal that I will remove. The piston seals will be covered while the upper groups are off.






The Sirai seems to have held up pretty well. There is not huge wear on the contacts. I took off the heating element and also removed the original element studs that were rusted a little. The element is definitely not the worst one I've seen. I am considering making the President 220V for quicker heatup time, where I simply just change out the element and plug since the wiring and switch are good for the higher voltage.




The pipes all came off. I took off the boiler with the thermospyon pipes so I could drain the little remaining water outside without spilling. Then the remaining pipes came off. Thankfully there was minimum if no leaking from the boiler lids based off of the untouched condition of the zinc plated bolts (that will be replaced with stainless) and aluminum boiler rings.



The inside was not too bad, outside of the freaking huge mounds of blue-white deposits around the failing thermoypshon cylinders. It is wild stuff, and definitely is present on both loops.




In this state I attempted to remove the five fittings I was unable to unscrew during the original restore. I was successful with three of five. I might have to leave the top two elbow fittings since they are incredibly stuck, and am becoming uncomfortable with the amount of force exerted on the fittings. Note that when I heated up the bottom fittings, where the leak is located, that very hard water leeched out of the solder joint. It looks like a sweet glaze found on donuts.





This is where I'll stop for now as I figure out how to approach the boiler fix properly. Disassembly was definitely not too bad compared to an untouched machine.

The sight glass was another assembly that I did not fully take apart. There was a minor leak occuring on the lower elbow fitting that I did not notice until the glass tube broke during disassembly. I have a spare on hand but I was more concerned on the elbow fittings. Each one has a 1/2" BSP fitting with a very thin square head that threads into the elbow portion. It needed some heating and cooling cycles and a large wrench to start loosening the threads, then I switched out to a 22mm wrench to complete the job. It was quite gnarly inside. The little metal balls are likely for reducing if not stopping water escaping if the glass breaks while pressurized.







The two valves were getting squeaky when using them so I will clean those too even though nothing catastrophic was found

Ryan, might a SSR be a consideration as the image with the mechanical relay appears to have toasted contacts already due to arcing? Or would you want to keep it 'original'?

TNX

it does not concern me, I either clean the contacts or replace the pstat when its life is done

I've been working on the two elbow fittings of the thermosyphon. This is not a commonly shown part of the disassembly, and often people will leave it original as I have done during the original restore. It is commongly plugged due to scale deposits from years of use and can damage the thermospyhon cylinders during removal. However since they need fixing anyways it's not a huge concern if another area is added to the list of brazes I want.

I first descaled the inside of the two cylinders, where the elbow fittings thread into on one end. I used a torch to heat up the tubes every so often to boiling point. I also removed as much of the original hemp cord sealing the fittings and after some heating I applied penetrating fluid that will stew for at least a few days.






When I feel ready, I will see if I can get the threads loose. I will be using a 24" breaker bar and a 21mm six sided deep socket and grasp as much of the hex head of each fitting as possible. It will need to be very carefully conducted so that I do not mess anything seriously up. I will have a second person hold the boiler securely while doing this after learning from my Faema Zodiaco project (which I was able to take off all the elbow fittings with a car mechanic).



The heating element studs were removed after I saw rust developing. It was from the element gasket that was not 100% sealed and had a very, very slow leak that fortunately was not serious. I used a thread follower to clean the threads and now have two M8 x 40mm stainless studs inserted. I also scraped off a lot of the old rtv sealant from the flanges in the process.

I got one of them off today. I had to secure the boiler such that I could exert the necessary force to begin loosening the fitting. It was quite tight but I did not yank on the handle turbo hard.






Here's a video demo of getting the stubborn fitting off. The other guy will soak some more before I attempt taking it off.

I win.

The boiler shifted a little when taking off the first fitting so I got out some straps to hold the boiler while using the breaker bar on the second fitting. I had my metal guy take off these fittings from my Lambro and Urania for me in the past so I'm happy I could it myself this time.

Fantastic photos, and excellent work!!

Thanks!

Cleanup was a breeze, just a brief citric acid bath and tumbler combo. There was a lot of nasty stuff that came out in the process. The pins I use in the tumbler are slightly large, so the threads sometimes do not get cleaned fully, which can be addressed by wire wheeling.

The boiler is still waiting for its repair due to a backlog of other stuff getting done at my metal guy's shop, but in the meanwhile I've been figuring out polishing stainless steel. I took off the feet and panels on the President for that purpose. I tried just straight polishing the stainless panels, which were sanded to 320 grit during the original restoration in 2020. It definitely brought out luster, but it the grit was still pretty visible. After poking my metal guy for advice, I continued sanding the panels to a higher grit starting at 600 and ending at 2000.




The top two panels were test polished prior to sanding, with an original panel on the bottom. It's an improvement but it definitely can be better.


The stainless panels with the finer sanding brought out a much better luster and reflection. There is still a deep grain that is still slightly visible, but only from certain angles. It actually goes well with the patina of the chrome parts so I'm pretty satisfied with the results. The aluminum feet were also polished up with the loose cotton wheel and white blizzard compound. In the pic with all 4 feet and panels you can see some 'fogging' in the panels that I tried touching up after. Some of the panels had some pretty deep pitting, but I left them in since I'd need to remove a good chunk of material to fully remove them. Just more patina.