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Well after a couple weeks of leaving the panels off to check for leaks, she's back in business and working better than I can ever remember!
So in the end, new:
Pump
Heating element
Every seal and oring
Silicone hoses
Group valves
Every thing fully descaled and polished, lubed and reassembled.
Bit of an update! Everything stripped down, lots of photos and a hell of a lot of nerves. Thankfully no pipes or threads were damaged. Actually impressed by the lack of severe scale considering the state of the mushroom.
Next step is to buy some descaler, soak all the nessesary bits and get the chassis sandblasted and powder coated.
I have a HiFLOW filter. Seems to work as we haven't had to clean our kettle since we got it? We can't install a second low flow tap in our kitchen so am limited to something that can filter all the cold water to our kitchen sink.
Assuming most of the build up on the Mushroom is as a result of your time with the machine -
as you stated 'purchased second hand some time ago' ....so maybe is / or is not the previous owner?
However the scale shows your likely to need Water Filtration....read the sticky regarding filtration in
Extreme machines from TC. This will save you from a lot of what your renovating this time.
Nice before and after shots. The white powder on the element terminals could be acidic corrosion. But from where? Wipe it off and clean with a little bicarb of soda in water.
The boiler is full right now though, so I'm not sure how to remove it without creating a mess!
You should be able to syphon off the water in the boiler using a small-ish diameter plastic or rubber hose...
Definitely worth giving the boiler and all the related pipework a thorough descaling too, while you're at it Pete. Use the Clean Machine Triple Action descaler would be my recommendation.
I have a 2007 Giotto Premium which I bought second hand some time ago and it has been going strong for many years now! Issues started when the group wasn't releasing pressure after finishing a shot, so I pulled the group off... and now it's kinda snowballed haha
I'm rebuilding the group, replacing all the silicone piping and T piece, new pump and mounts, stripping the unit down and sandblasting the steel parts of the body and repainting them and then hopefully putting it all back together correctly.
My query is, is there anything else you would recommend upgrading/improving while I have it all open?
Anyway of smothering the noise of the pump?
The white powder at the end of the heating element doesn't look 'standard' :P The boiler is full right now though, so I'm not sure how to remove it without creating a mess! I would say if the upper sleeve had that much scale, the heating element probably is in pretty poor condition as well...
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