Servicing Minore IV

[neal32 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close neal32]

Hey Guys,

I bought my Minore 4 for about 3 years ago second hand and have never serviced it. I've always cleaned it, backflushed weekly and used filtered water but I believe now is the time.

Ideally I would like to do it myself but don't know how. Is there a manual floating around on the internet or does someone know what I should be looking at replacing? I like to do things myself and have the tools and confidence to give it a crack.

The issues my machine have are that the PID doesn't work, which seems to be a common fault and not a show stopper but lately when I finish the shot, instead of it shooting out steam to relieve the pressure, it just dribbles out :/ I'm hoping it's just an old seal somewhere

If I can't do it myself due to lack of information out there, how much would I be looking at it to get it serviced in the Gold Coast area?

Thanks in advance,

Neal

[artman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close artman]

The PID might be tricky if you are not electronically inclined.

As to the mechanical side of things, the E61 group is all springs, seals and levers/cams and can be easily serviced/cleaned. Likewise the taps and pressure check etc.

There are lots of guides around that go through the process, the parts are readily available too ( eg coffeeparts).

Cheers

[KJM Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close KJM]

Neal - this machine goes by the name "Brewtus" in the US. There is a google group - called "brewtus" - that has a lot of documentation you'll find useful. If you join, you can download the 'brewtus compendium' which has a fair bit of detail in both how it works, how to modify and how to maintain. Mind you, not ALL the information posted in the forum is actually sensible!

I'm not sure what you're referring to about the relief of pressure - if you're referring to the 3 way valve dumping the water into the drip tray then this is the e61 group head - which as artman says - is entirely mechanical. There are e61 take-apart-and-rebuild tutorials trivially find-able.

Gicar make the controller for this thing too, and mine (I have a Minore-II) had the display die (machine still worked, but you could not tell the temperature as segments died one by one!). Rick Bond (coffee_machinist) supplied me one of the later blue LED versions that apparently lasts longer than the original.. They aren't particularly cheap, but I discovered just how impossible it was to source the seven segment displays Gicar used in that model! So I was unable to repair mine, which annoyed me a bit. But overall the machine is built like a tank Service amounts to dealing with the seals and springs in the e61 and almost nothing else...

Cheers
/Kevin