So I've been posting a lot recently and appreciate all of the help I've gotten. I recently purchased an older Izzo Alex Duetto II from CL. I thought I got a steal (machine, Mazzer mini, commercial coffee maker and grinder, plus lots of miscellaneous stuff for $800). My plan was to sell everything except the Izzo and grinder and set my friend up with a good starter machine and grinder. However, as expected, things sometimes are too good to be true. One I got the Izzo plugged in, I noticed water under the machine coming from the steam boiler. Ok, so it needs a new gasket. I really struggled pulling the heating element (thanks for everyone's help with that). Once I got it apart I found an incredible amount of scale in everything, so decided to make this a learning project and decided to tear it all apart, clean and rebuild. So that's the long winded back story, now to my question:
The steam boiler gauge does not read zero, even though it is disconnected from the boiler. I'm wondering if the gauge is stuck, defective, or possibly blocked with scale?
Thanks for the advice!

Not sure why all my pics post upside down...

It may be the orientation of your phone(?) when the picture is taken. It happens to me, and I never notice it until I transfer the pics to my computer. I just edit them at that point.

In my experience, a damaged gauge has a flat ribbon shaped tube inside that is either filled with scale or damaged by water expansion during freezing. I normally end up buying a new one as taking it apart and physically realligning doesn't guarantee accuracy in the future. Please note that the gauge may be an indicator of other hidden damage.

See some additional details and photos on this post:

La San Marco 85-16M Practical rebuild

Thanks for the link Nick. I guess I'll take apart the existing gauge to try to learn more about it but will plan on replacing it with a new one.

I'll lend my experience plus what a coffee tech told me. At the tech's suggestion, I took the needle off and just put it back on on zero. And, it seems to be working. Now, I had probably bent the semi-circular metal piece in the back of ("inside") the pressure gauge, so maybe all replacing the needle did was effectively "unbend" that piece of metal. YMWV.

Gauges are relatively inexpensive, and tend to be made relatively cheaply. Best bet is just replace it.

It looks like your machine is upside down. This would definitely cause the steam boiler to leak

All kidding aside, it isn't a big deal to replace the gauges; I've replaced a number of them. Just make sure you buy the right size to fit in the hole, and they are specific to brew or steam. As others have noted they could point to deeper issues (namely scale), but I've also seen them just start to wear out and not zero any more.

Also, here are some instructions on descaling the Duetto: http://coffeetime.wikidot.com/izzo-alex ... rew-boiler (there is also a link on that page to descaling the steam boiler).

Let us know how it all goes!