Well .. after a long time with trouble fee service from this great little lever machine .. it is finally time for a seal change.
I read Jack from Sorrentina's How to change seals over on the CS forum and it doesn't go as smoothly as youd hope .. not that we weren't given the heads up that it is difficult the first time you do it .. which, blimey .. was no understatement :head:
I came a gutza at the 2nd hurdle .. trying to get the spring clip off the pin that joins the end of the lever to the piston.
Jack said to use 2 screwdrivers .. It is that tight and I couldn't find where the gap was .. I couldn't even feel it when running the screwdriver head around the circle of it. After trying many times I realized that there was no hope of getting this little sucker off .. and even if I eventually managed it .. there was no way I would put myself through that again the next time the seals need replacing every couple of years.
Ok .. the only way I was going to get the pin out was to file it down. The idea was to then drill a hole in the pin and put a sheetmetal screw in it that had a flat wide head. This would stop the pin from coming out that held the lever in place .. and be easy to get off the next time.
The drills in the $27 new set that I bought didn't want to drill into the pin .. so I figured they were duds (Frost Made in Australia) and got a refund on the set and bought just the one size that I needed. It drilled the hole ok and the screw fitted in nicely.
Great - time to assemble the Coffee machine ... Yay :thumb:
Ok .. seeing I didn't have the 'Special tool' that Jack has .. I'd been using the F-clamp method .... the large spring in the cylinder shot out quickly when taking the F-clamp off .. but it didn't do any damage.
Now I'm following Jacks instructions to put it back together ... and here's the tricky bit ... well, more than just tricky ... I'd call it 'impossible' without his 'tool' .. but Jack has managed to do it using the F-clamp.
When using the F-clamp .. there isn't much space on the top of the cylinder for the clamp to sit .. and Jack admits that you have to hold it in place to stop it from slipping off the slippery shiny surface.
Here's the knockout blow :pan
Being such a large spring ... how are you supposed to turn the handle of the F-clamp to compress this mighty strong spring .. as if that isn't near or impossible .. there isn't a stable grip at the top of the clamp. It most likely will slide off even if you miraculously had the strength of a dozen Horses to compress it. :doh:
Anyway .. the only way I am going to be able to put this together is to contact Jack from Sorrentina and ask him to send me his Special tool that he has lent to people in the past.
I have tried to contact Jack recently .. but have not received a reply. I don't know if he is still running his business .. and he is the only Authority on the Ponte Vecchio Lusso Coffee machines in Australia
The only contact is via his website .. which appears that Jack may not attend to
Does anyone have Jacks phone number .. so that I can call him in SA? Or perhaps - does any PV Lusso owner have the Special tool that I can borrow?
Any help with this would be appreciated. My coffee machine has been out of action for over 3 weeks now .. and yoall know this is an extremely desperate situation. 8)
Edit: With the handle of the F-clamp .. I could drill a large hole in the handle to put a large screwdriver through it to act as a lever to compress the spring ... but even doing that .. there is still the problem of the top of the F-clamp slipping off
