I'm finding it hard to believe that you can put enough usage on an espresso machine rotary pump motor in home usage to in 10-years to blow out the bearings unless water got in there.

Isn't that a nice feeling when it all works out?

BaristaBoy E61 wrote:I'm finding it hard to believe that you can put enough usage on an espresso machine rotary pump motor in home usage to in 10-years to blow out the bearings unless water got in there.

The motor on this machine sits above the pump so I don't see how water would enter it.
I mean it's not that hard to imagine that ~13 years of use could lead to the bearings wearing out eventually.
I also just recently picked it up so have no idea how the previous owner worked it (that said it's very clean and had little to no scale)

Update: I installed the motor with the new bearings, and low and behold, the same noise is still there. Wow that was quite a few hours of work for not much gain!

The flow rate is better now (getting 78ml over 10 seconds unrestricted, it was lower before), but the same noise persists.

Does anyone have ideas as to what else I could test to pinpoint the problem?

The noise is coming from either the motor or the pump, although when I run the motor with no pump attached it's dead quiet. The pump was replaced recently though which is leaving me a bit perplexed.

Are you able to post a video with sound so that we might hear the problem too?

If you rotate the pump by hand, does it rotate smoothly, or does the motion feel gritty? If it does not spin with minimal effort, or if it feels like there is grit in the mechanism, then the pump might be bad. Also, make sure you're not over-tightening the collar between the pump and the motor. The collar should be loose enough that you can rotate the pump against the motor, but not so loose that it can do so on it's own.

Check the rubber joints between the pump assembly and the frame, are they still flexible?

BaristaBoy E61 wrote:Are you able to post a video with sound so that we might hear the problem too?

Yes, here's the video of it running with the back flush disc in (although it makes the same noise without a portafilter). The sound disappears when the machine reaches full pressure. I'm not sure if that is helpful in pinpointing the issue.

Thanks.

GreenEggsAndSam wrote:If you rotate the pump by hand, does it rotate smoothly, or does the motion feel gritty? If it does not spin with minimal effort, or if it feels like there is grit in the mechanism, then the pump might be bad. Also, make sure you're not over-tightening the collar between the pump and the motor. The collar should be loose enough that you can rotate the pump against the motor, but not so loose that it can do so on it's own.

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Hmm it feels smooth to rotate, but it does take a bit of force to get it moving.
And good call on the collar, I definitely had it pretty tight (no change on the noise front unfortunately).

Thanks

borrik wrote:Check the rubber joints between the pump assembly and the frame, are they still flexible?

Yes they have good movement and don't seem to be overly stiff.