I'm struggling to compress a very strong spring in a portafilter of indeterminate brand (possibly Artech made it).

We have a built-in 20yo Kleenmaid CM01x - an Aussie rebadger known for buying machines from many countries. We've had the house 7 years with no history from previous occupants.

After a recent descale, it was spluttering a bit so I decided to undo some obvious screws on the portafilter.

It looked like this before I took it apart.





The problem is the internal spring is very powerful so compressing the plunger to go back inside is almost impossible - I cannot get close to squishing it enough either by hand or using a simple carpentry clamp. Is this the kind of thing that requires a specialist tool, or are these so rare that I won't finding someone able to do maintenance anyway?



Much to my amazement, I found an exploded parts diagram if any obsessives out there want a more detailed view (the spring is part 107).

I feel incredibly stupid right now. I've found one replacement on eBay for $150 and have a very unimpressed spouse.

I also saw a listing for replacing just the handle of the portafilter where it was described as a trivial change! No instructions so I'm not sure what else I've missed or done wrong, sigh.

Any suggestions very gratefully accepted!

Talk about something new. This is not a conventional portafilter. If the coffee is put on the disk over the spring; it looks like the pump pressure will compress the spring, and allow the water to flow.

In any case, there's probably was a custom clamp that will push up the spout and spring into the body, so that you can tighten the screws marked 103. Cab you put a stick across the top of the sleeve (106) and use a large clamp on the stick and bottom of the spout to compress the spring?

BTW, welcome to HB, I appreciate the work and research you put in. But I can't help wondering if you can use that energy on a more promising machine.

Thanks for the encouragement, yes after an hour or so I'd worked out it is far from conventional. So much for my hopes that regular techs out there may have some magic clamp as standard part of their workshop. Sigh.

Using a piece of wood across it and two clamps, can compress the spring far beyond the level I need but am struggling to have working space to get the other bits back into position. I have a reasonable carpentry workshop so if can make a wooden countersunk frame to hold it all that may be the answer.

f the coffee is put on the disk over the spring; it looks like the pump pressure will compress the spring, and allow the water to flow.

That's indeed where the coffee goes and your comment reminded me, it used to be noticeable that the spout would move down a bit and then back up again when water flow ended. That movement stopped a couple of years ago which is another reason I'd thought it a good idea to pull the thing apart.

The amount of effort put in is more about marital harmony than just plain $$ but also it would be annoying to have to replace this built-in which is in the middle of the kitchen.

I have left the wayward spring sitting next to the angle grinder overnight to muse on its sins.

If it's expanded beyond normal limits as an effect of age and pressure release then a coarse trimming will at least make things fit and, with some springiness still in there, work more-or-less as before. I am still hopeful some magic twist will get it back into position.

Yep, I grew up on a farm. We resort to pragmatic solutions.

It's fixed!

I thought about it for a few days and did an experiment where I just compressed the spring without putting it in the barrel - was able to squish down dramatically more than I needed, with a clamp. That suggested maybe it was a problem with the spring binding on itself when I reassembled, so it was not so much me working against the springiness as putting it into some incompressible mix.

Putting it back together with a bit of a twist of the spring, much swearing and losing my temper with it, got the main part of the lever back on and nearly compressed enough, with only one panel not yet right.


From this state was able to put the screws in the base and the distributor on so I could easily use clamps to squish a bit more and get final panel properly back and screwed in.



Making coffee and watching from side, after the coffee's finished running, you can see the distributor go back up a few mm as the pressure reduces from the water being forced through the grounds. So it's actually working better than just before the saga.

Never again!

Thanks for the encouraging feedback.

Thanks for the peek into a strange corner of the coffee maker world.