Olympia Cremina 67 Rebuild

CREMINA 67 Rebuild

I am be undertaking the rebuild of an Olympia Cremina 67 Club Espresso machine. This machine is a manual lever espresso machine, handmade in Switzerland. Technical documents and Diagrams are available from the Olympia site http://shop.olympia-express.ch/OMTD/Cremina67/Cremina67.htm

Pictures before work began. 

When I started the grouphead had already been removed, and disassembly had begun. The piston had been removed from the cylinder. I powered on the machine and the lights came on and the boiler began to steam through the open hole to the grouphead. Therefore I decided to complete the grouphead rebuild and see if this was sufficient to restore function. I ordered the rebuild gasket kit from http://www.orphanespresso.com. There appeared to be no evidence of major leaks inside, but when the group rebuild was complete more problems became apparent. 

When I replaced the grouphead and filled the boiler the glass water level tube did not fill. I tried filling the boiler with a descaling solution but ultimately I had to remove the boiler base and poke the scaled up tube clear. Once this was complete the machine worked! At that point I had entirely disassembled the entire machine in search of the problem. I initially ordered just the grouphead gaskets and had to order the  boiler gasket and copper crush washers separately. 

In the right hand picture you can see the asbestos insulation on the boiler. Since this is intact and not flaking or crumbling I decided it was probably safer to leave it alone than try to remove it.

I decided not to do a complete restoration to how the machine looked when it left the factory.  This Home-Barista thread detailing a complete restoration of a Cremina by Steve Robinson here may be of interest http://www.home-barista.com/levers/restoration-of-olympia-cremina-t464.html

The machine now works perfectly and makes good espresso.