Hi everyone, I just purchased what seems to be a 1984 Rancilio Z9 (DE?), from what I have been reading on this forum, I need an external pump, does it have to a rotary? A guy from Rancilio just sent me the parts diagram to help me out but he doesn't have the electrical diagram, he also tells me that electrical part, can no longer be ordered which sounds a little scary, is there any way around these electrical boards, can I use newer ones? As you can see on the pictures, I have 2 sets of wires, the bigger is for the 240V but what is the other smaller one, could it be for a 110v connections? Then, back of the machine, there are 2 little boxes with 2 pipes connected to it and electrical connections on top that are damaged, could those be pressure regulators? then, front right of the machine, I have seen on the parts diagram, there seems to be a little round knob that moves left to right to action a spring loaded ''pressure'' release?? To that four way pipe, left hand side, threaded opening, water inlet?
Thanks for your help and honest insights, I did purge the water from the boiler and it was pretty clean, I think it has been a while seen it last functioned.. Thanks again.

Sandrino

Pictures

OK, right after posting this, I got an idea about the 2nd set of smaller wire(3), they are most likely the wires that will power my pump...

Sandrino wrote:I have 2 sets of wires, the bigger is for the 240V but what is the other smaller one, could it be for a 110v connections? Then, back of the machine, there are 2 little boxes with 2 pipes connected to it and electrical connections on top that are damaged, could those be pressure regulators? then, front right of the machine, I have seen on the parts diagram, there seems to be a little round knob that moves left to right to action a spring loaded ''pressure'' release?? To that four way pipe, left hand side, threaded opening, water inlet?
Thanks for your help and honest insights, I did purge the water from the boiler and it was pretty clean, I think it has been a while seen it last functioned.. Thanks again.

2 pairs of wires... Power in for the machine and power out to the pump... And I suppose it doesn't have to be a rotary, but I can't imagine why anyone would choose anything else for a machine that isn't capable of modulating the pump's speed.

Little boxes with pipes in and out and an electric sensor on top... Flow meters? One for each group?

The knob is probably a fill valve so you can manually over-ride the boiler's auto-fill if you want more mass in the boiler for a faster recovering heat exchanger rather than a large steam pocket. (Or to manually control the boiler level for any other reason).

And yes, probably water connection.

[Edit] Yes, now that your pictures have loaded: Machine's and Pump's wires. Those are flowmeters. The valve on the right allows you to manually add water to the boiler. Water inlet connection.

The only valve I see, looks like a manual drain valve. that's the one that looks like you have to slide a lever over it to operate it. Is there another one I'm missing?

I'm going to say that this valve is the "manual boiler fill". There's a threaded connection where the pump would provide flow to the three other high-pressure ports/fittings (Red arrows). Since the 2-head machine would need three ports, one going to the boiler auto-fill solenoid valve, one to the flowmeter for group left and one going to the flow meter for group right. Then bolted to the other outlet of that "manifold" is the manual valve and another high-pressure outlet (blue arrow) that would go to boiler by bypassing the solenoid valve.

Because of the oxidation that I see in the picture, I would further guess that that manual valve leaks at the lever end when activated and that the knob may have been intentionally removed so that nobody would touch it.

Ahh, I see.

Thanks for your help, I am waiting to order a pump to test things out, I will keep you posted, if you have any other ideas or suggestions, all welcomed, Ira, thanks for the tip on submitting photos.