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Hi all,
Long time browser, first time poster.
I've recently been given for freea V1 Silvia along with a Rocky grinder by a mate at work. He had upgraded since he thought the Silvia had blown the boiler (had been replaced once in its life already) as it was no longer heating. I got it home and checked the thermostats etc with my multimeter and everything looked ok. Also checked the thermostat reset switch and that didnt seem to need anything either. So, I filled it up, powered it on and purged it, then let it heat... and it did! So it doesn't seem like the boiler element has gone after all.
However, when running water through it I was getting water leaking out of the bottom - looks like the seal on the silicon tubing connected to the OPV is pumping out water. I also found that when I tried a backflush the grouphead leaked fairly significantly. In addition the frame under the driptray has a fair amount of rust. So my plan was to scrape out the rust and sand it back, treat it with deruster and prime it, and fix it up with some black enamel paint to sort out the rust issue (since its not on show it doesnt matter too much how it looks). Then give the rest of the machine a bit of TLC - replace the gaskets on the grouphead and boiler, take the boiler out and give it a proper descale, apply teflon tape to all the screw connectors to give them a proper seal.
My question is - is it worth it on a machine this age? Given the boiler doesn't seem to have gone it shouldn't be too costly an exercise so I'm keen to at least try, but could this be the start of a slippery slope?
Is there any other maintenance I should be considering adding to the list as well? Or any other checks that I should be doing.
As for the rocky - aside from taking it apart and giving the burrs a clean, and then running some grindz through it - anything else I should be doing? Its got a bit of a funky smell to it as it is...
To give some context:
I'm certainly an appreciator of good coffee and those who do it well. I currently use a Nespresso machine with a "proper" steam wand (please dont shoot me down!) for the convenience factor for everyone else in the household, though the coffee pods are always made fresh by myself using good coffee ground at the time using a SmartGrinder. I'm pretty happy with the results and would rate it better than the coffee I get from friends using mainstream consumer espresso machines - Id put this down the coffee/operator though Usually 2 double miky coffees made daily, double that at weekends.
I've often wanted to get into a more serious setup though and considering that this would be a decent way to try it out without laying out a wad of cash. I don't want to set myself up for failure though by having a machine that isn't operating as it should resulting in poor coffee. Since I've never owner a silvia before I don't have a benchmark of how a well performing machine should be operating! If the project was a success and became our usual coffee machine and it then subsequently died I'd be able to justify a real upgrade...
Long time browser, first time poster.
I've recently been given for freea V1 Silvia along with a Rocky grinder by a mate at work. He had upgraded since he thought the Silvia had blown the boiler (had been replaced once in its life already) as it was no longer heating. I got it home and checked the thermostats etc with my multimeter and everything looked ok. Also checked the thermostat reset switch and that didnt seem to need anything either. So, I filled it up, powered it on and purged it, then let it heat... and it did! So it doesn't seem like the boiler element has gone after all.
However, when running water through it I was getting water leaking out of the bottom - looks like the seal on the silicon tubing connected to the OPV is pumping out water. I also found that when I tried a backflush the grouphead leaked fairly significantly. In addition the frame under the driptray has a fair amount of rust. So my plan was to scrape out the rust and sand it back, treat it with deruster and prime it, and fix it up with some black enamel paint to sort out the rust issue (since its not on show it doesnt matter too much how it looks). Then give the rest of the machine a bit of TLC - replace the gaskets on the grouphead and boiler, take the boiler out and give it a proper descale, apply teflon tape to all the screw connectors to give them a proper seal.
My question is - is it worth it on a machine this age? Given the boiler doesn't seem to have gone it shouldn't be too costly an exercise so I'm keen to at least try, but could this be the start of a slippery slope?
Is there any other maintenance I should be considering adding to the list as well? Or any other checks that I should be doing.As for the rocky - aside from taking it apart and giving the burrs a clean, and then running some grindz through it - anything else I should be doing? Its got a bit of a funky smell to it as it is...
To give some context:
I'm certainly an appreciator of good coffee and those who do it well. I currently use a Nespresso machine with a "proper" steam wand (please dont shoot me down!) for the convenience factor for everyone else in the household, though the coffee pods are always made fresh by myself using good coffee ground at the time using a SmartGrinder. I'm pretty happy with the results and would rate it better than the coffee I get from friends using mainstream consumer espresso machines - Id put this down the coffee/operator though
Usually 2 double miky coffees made daily, double that at weekends.I've often wanted to get into a more serious setup though and considering that this would be a decent way to try it out without laying out a wad of cash. I don't want to set myself up for failure though by having a machine that isn't operating as it should resulting in poor coffee. Since I've never owner a silvia before I don't have a benchmark of how a well performing machine should be operating! If the project was a success and became our usual coffee machine and it then subsequently died I'd be able to justify a real upgrade...
can't justify replacing the boiler and group assembly to get this thing going.
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