sorrentinacoffee,

The original switch must have been sourced from an Italian company that was only in business one day and their entire production was sold to Sama and Ponte. I refused to believe orphanespresso when they told me a switch that would fit my panel opening was no longer available and I would have to modify my machine to fit what was available. In fact, I got a little pissy with them and lived to eat my words, and a big part of one foot. My apologies again to Doug and Barb at orphanespresso.

Like you, I spent about a hundred hours on the net and on the telephone with switch manufacturers trying to locate a switch that would fit. Result: I could find switches that fit either in height or width, but not in both dimensions.I had to modify the panel opening to fit the switch orphan sent me. Fortunately, it did not take too much work with some tool makers files and now it fits perfectly.

I repaired broken, leaking, and misaligned plumbing connections, replaced every seal, gasket and O-ring. Descaled the tank and all the piping several times until I could see no scale or corrosion remaining. I made a little tool to make installing the piston seals a lot easier. It also prevents damaging the new seals trying to use metal tools to get the new seals properly installed and seated. You just start the new seal over the small end of the tool and slide it on to the piston. Worked like a charm. Im attaching a couple of pictures of the tool and will provide measurements if anyone is interested.

Today I figured out the wiring, reassembled everything and tomorrow I'm going to give it the electrical and wet pressure test. If everything works OK and does not leak I'll run a couple of tanks of distilled water through it then start thinking about what kind of coffee I should start with.

Should I always use distilled water to prevent future scale accumulations? Usually distilled water does not have a pleasant taste so I'm not sure.

searay

The seal replacement tool looks very handy. Keep us posted when you pull the first shot!
PC

Tested the Lusso yesterday. Electrical system is OK. Plumbing, not so good. The pressure gauge never moved though I had tweaked the pressure switch until the safety valve began to vent a little. There is also a tiny pin hole leak where the lower water level indicator tube is attached to the boiler. Only leaks a drop about every 20 seconds under pressure.
I was able to disassemble and repair the pressure gauge but have done nothing with the leak. The leak needs to be silver soldered but the whole works seems to be either chrome or nickle plated and I'm not sure if the silver solder will fuse to the surface properly. I need to do a little more research before doing anything about the leak.

Today I cleaned the area around the leak at the lower level tube and boiler connection using a dremel and a small wire brush attachment. Also gave it a treatment of a high strength citric acid solution for a couple of hours then rinsed it well and dried it. After looking at the joint more closely, it was obvious that during manufacturing that joint did not get a good application of whatever brazing or soldering material they used so it was not very strong. When I was removing and reinstalling the water level sight glass I had to bend the tubing slightly to get the glass in and out and so cracked the joint.

I tried using a BernzOmatic ST250K micro torch to heat the area hot enough to get the silver solder to melt and flow. No good. The heat transfer rate of the boiler was high enough to drain the heat away from the joint so the solder would not melt. I finally got up the nerve to use a small oxy-acetlyene jewelers torch I have. I was afraid of actually damaging the tank or tube but I was careful to not let the flame stay in one place and kept playing it around the joint. Touched the silver solder to the joint and it flowed like magic. Applied a nice fillet of silver solder all around the joint to strengthen it.

Put everything back together except the cover, filled it up with bottled drinking water, crossed my fingers and powered it up. NO LEAKS!!! After about 10 or so minutes the now-working pressure gauge was at 1.5 and the pressure stat kicked off. Following Timo888's recommendation in his "Initial impressions of the Ponte Vecchio Lusso" I dialed down the pressure on the p-stat. Now the heater turns on at 1.1 and off at 1.2 bar.

Now that I'm sure it's working I'm going to get some good beans and start learning how to make some espresso!

Sounds like a very successful restoration. Thanks for posting on it. I have a similar project waiting for me for summer vacation, but I have a pair of Exports in use to meet the daily needs...

I think you'll find the Sama a forgiving machine, capable of great espresso. One simple way I've found to get good shots is to fill the double basket close to the top, ground fine enough so the first pull pours very slowly, then take a second pull.

Keep us updated,
PC