Boiler Plumbing Replacement

[seand]

I've been running my S1V1 since 2006 on a dedicated water softener/filter system and I do pretty regular maintenance. On this last round I saw some white powder around the elbow joints on the boiler side with some going inside of the tubing. Suspecting there was some significant limescale thing happening I pulled the boiler apart. The inside of the boiler and the heating element were in excellent shape, but the ports themselves going along into the tubing were in bad shape. The compression fittings themselves were frozen together by scale on the boiler side.

Anyone know where I can get replacement tubing/inserts/ferrules or at least the sizes? (seems like parts #7140, 7141, 7142, 7330)

Thanks,
Sean

[seand]

Chris Coffee had the parts and was really great to order from. The tech helped me make sure I had the right parts on the phone and went did some measuring to find out the length of tubing I'd need as well. I could find no other places to source the combinations of sizes at least here in the US.

Descaling with the boiler open was very interesting... for my 8 year old machine and water chemistry I had to open it up and mechanically remove some of the built-up solids. They had somehow reacted with the plating inside of the boiler and when removed it left copper behind. It was also starting to eat up the plumbing and cause tiny leaks at the boiler inlets/outlets. One of the ports was 50% blocked and there was no outward signs from operating the machine.

All of that said... removing the old gasket was BY FAR the biggest pain of this maintenance.

I'm hoping to get the parts in a few days and my machine should be practically good as new.

[chas]

On the newer S1 machines the boilers are left copper and not chrome plated. I have the same sort of problem with the chrome plating eventually getting eroded off the inside of my S1 portafilters as well. On my GS/3, the boilers and the portafilter are stainless so I have none of those plated copper issues. Of course the cost goes way up, too.

[seand]

Really for the age the machine was in great condition and copper plating or otherwise it seems fine.

I may have a spoken too soon about the hardest aspect being the gasket. I've had a heck of a time getting the elbow fittings coming off the boiler to reseal at the boiler. I did what I thought was a pretty good leak check filling the boiler and tightening everything up... but... once the boiler heated and sealed the fittings at the boiler became steam vents. Not pinpoints but pretty wild leaks. Because those fittings are straight through no gasket, and not being a fan of thread lock... I used some thread tape and it seems much better now. I'm going to cycle it a few times and cross my fingers.

Cutting the tubing and installing the compression fittings was as normal (that is, crazy easy) once I had the metric size parts.