This thread is to describe what it's like to restore one of these great old machines. My last post in a major thread on restoring these was titled "Restoration as Discovery," and that's a good place to pick up. I bought my machine on eBay and it worked for awhile with great steaming but somewhat bitter high pressure extractions. Then steaming dropped off, I looked inside, found lots or rust and knew it was time for a frame off rebuild.
Here's that thread:
Pasquini Livietta (Olympia Maximatic) restoration
It includes an excellent summary by Sherman Chong that starts here.
My notes on what I found in teardown start here.
Since then I've had the frame and water tank bracket powder coated, renewed the chrome plating on the group, portafilter and steam wand. I've kept the repaint on the case and used RustOleum to address a few rust spots that were starting inside. I was able to remove most of the fine abrasion marks on the face plate and top by hand polishing with Simichrome. That stuff's terrific! Although the Ulka pump still works I ordered a Fluid-o-Tec pump to replace it because these are said to offer close to ideal brew pressure. I'm attaching the Fluid-o-Tec companion bypass valve which has a dial setting to further control brew pressure. Attaching the bypass valve wasn't obvious, but Stefano at http://www.epressocare.com suggested I remove the snout fitting on the right and it hooked right up. Now I'll have to go to Radio Shack to source a 3 amp rectifier diode to make the pump quieter (added: as corrected by Eric below and acknowledged by Fluid-o-Tech the diode is needed for the pump to work and the Radio Shack spec wasn't clear enough for the FOT engineer so I got their part -- see below).
The original Olympia Coffex PSTAT got swapped into a 1987 Cremina I recently restored but the seller of that machine found a wonderful vintage Olympia PSTAT that came back to life very easily. I propped that old PSTAT upright, filled it with a 1:1 dilution of white vinegar and let it sit overnight. Then I rinsed the inside with water (being careful to leave the microswitch dry). I used some baking soda and water on a Q tip swab to clean the top, polished the brass a bit, fastened it in place and hoped. It works perfectly and adjusts easily.
I replaced the original wiring with the Orphan Espresso wiring harness upgrade to save the time of figuring out what plugs in where. A couple of the tabs had come off so I had to do some sleuthing but got it hooked up and working only to realize I'd installed the On/Off and Brew switches upside down. The clue is the legend on the front plate.

My next post will continue some of the rebuild details and other "improvisations"!