I have had to replace Part PD1 in the picture with the red circle in two similar boxes and have always replaced the circled capacitor at the same time.

But I'd look at the water level sensor, if it indicates water needed the heater should not turn on.

Ira

sorry for the delay in updating everyone. but here it goes:

i've been working back and forth with elektros via email (by the way, those guys are sooooo helpful). They were the ones that told me to see if any caps were blown. After I replaced the blown cap, I put everything back together and here was the results:
then Elektros enlightened me to the fact that the leak was most likely coming from the safety valve because the boiler was too full, most likely from me continuously pulling the water-level probe connection and forcing the fill. I was then naive enough to think that you could simply run water through the group head and that would empty the boiler. The following comedy show is what transpired:
hahahahahahah. anyways, after that Elektros explained to me how I needed to empty the boiler and this is the results from that:
in that last video I borrowed the neighbors multimeter to try and test a few things. I wasn't able to read any voltage going into the heating element. but I was worried that it could just be his multimeter was a bit faulty. So today I went out and bought a new multimeter and ran some diagnostics. The p-stat shows 0 ohms, which if I'm not mistaken means it is still good. The thermostat also shows 0 ohms which I also believe means it is still good. The heating element shows a reading that fluctuates between 10 and 30 ohms. All 3 of those things also passed the continuity test. I bypassed the p-stat anyway one last time to see if anything had changed. Still a no-go.

I want to make it clear that I am no longer getting the "no water" light. That has gone away. At the moment, the only problem I am trying to fix is the heating element not turning on. This leads me to my final thoughts. Right now I still can't get a reading of any voltage being passed through to the heating element. I am not exactly sure how the voltage is supposed to be measured. I have tried a few ways. I have the machine plugged in and turned on and I touch the leads of the multimeter to the spot where the wires make the connection to the spades of the heating element. I have also tried removing the wires and touching the leads of the multimeter directly to the wires. Nothing seems to work. It would make sense though, that no electricity is being passed through to the heating element. That would definitely cause it to NOT turn on.

So my 2 questions right now are these:

1. Am I testing the voltage the correct way for the heating element?

2. If so, and the heating element is not getting electricity, is this something that could be caused by a bad electronic control unit, or is this something to do with the wiring?

As always, thanks in advance for any help everyone!!!

Was the cap you replaced the one you posted a picture of on the first page?

ricky analog wrote:... The heating element shows a reading that fluctuates between 10 and 30 ohms. ...

Google is your friend on this, but I don't think you should be getting a fluctuating reading.

thought you had it replacing the capacitor .
next in line is the hi limit switch , it's a thermal cut off switch , above the heating element , below the safety valve . the red button is pushed in , it passes power to the heating element.
while not best practices , if the switch is bypassed and the element engages , the limit switch is toast .

kudos for sharing your trouble shooting experiences

HTH
G'luck

So I bypassed the thermostat and the unit still didn't heat up. I didn't think that was the problem since it had continuity, a 0 ohm reading, and the red button wasn't depressed/tripped.

Does anyone know how to correctly test whether or not the heating element is actually getting power?

Theoretically shouldn't I be able to bypass the thermostat, the p-stat, and the water-level probe all at the same time and then the only thing in the circuit should be the heating element? I want to try and isolate the heating element so that we have less factors to try and deal with.

Thanks all!

In effect, the heater is connected to the wall plug by a number of switches, in this case, various safeties, and the brain box. In a 110V machine one side is usually directly connected to the neutral side of the power cord, sometimes it first goes through a double pole power switch.

Unplug the machine
connect one lead of your meter to the neutral lead of the power cord.
Turn the meter to ohms.
Turn the machine on
Check for continuity to the heating element, make sure it's less than 50 ohms
If there is continuity, follow the wires from the heating element through all the "switches" until you lose continuity or it goes up significantly.
Likely, that will be the brain box
If so, then most likely the relay inside the brain box is either dead or not being turned on.

Ira