Gaggia Baby Class – Working!

Previous tale of Gaggia dismemberment here.

Happy Donkey sorted me out with a new 3-way solenoid valve (which didn’t look like it’d fit but it did) and the Gaggia machine was rebuilt..

Gaggia Baby Class - Internal parts view

Gaggia Baby Class - Water is finally appearing!

Gaggia Baby Class - Coffee!!

Wicked! I now have a Gaggia Baby D to sell and the Gaggia Classic arrived today except it has a smashed water container! Nooo! Will see if Happy Donkey has a spare..

Mal and I made coffees today. Can’t believe I held off on getting a machine for so long and now I have three..

A weekend of contrasts..

hippy tweed ride london 2009

Saturday: Gorgeous weather held out for the LFGSS Tweed Ride. It was a fantastic day of cycling all over central London with about 150 riders dressed in tweed or retro outfits. I’ve never, NEVER seen so many pedestrians, drivers and police smiling at a bunch of cyclists before. It’s like the tweed clothing makes riders such a novelty that people forget they hate you for a second. Absolutely fantastic fun riding all over town.. EVERYONE was having a great time, I don’t think I stopped smiling for the entire day, which for me, must have caused a terrible strain on those particular facial muscles 🙂

There were prizes from Huntsman on Saville Row for best dressed gentleman and dame, best ‘tache from Geo F Trumper, best bike from Tour de Ville and Hendrick’s put on some Gin and Tonic for us at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club

eyebrows’ bike-cam video of the ride

It appears the tweed trend has gone global now..

arkitipintel.com (Le Car’s blog)

gearbrisbane.com

acontinuouslean.com

catcubed.com

bikesandthecity.blogspot.com

urbanjunkies.com

thewashingmachinepost.net – “break out the fixed velocipede, jeeves”

All that remains is for these bamboo freaks to band together and take to the streets, like those Tweed Run weirdos in London.” (bikesnobnyc)

For lots of images from the LondonFGSS Tweed Ride click here. They’ve been tagged with “lfgsstweedrun”.

Sunday: Harp Hilly 100k. The forecast was 6am Heavy Rain, 9 Heavy Rain, 12 Heavy Rain, 15 Heavy Rain.. and the actual weather certainly didn’t disappoint!

I didn’t get as lost as last year on the way to the start so made it with time to spare. It was ?10 entry this time since they were running it more like a sportive than a reliability ride and had marked the course, had electronic timing and food, etc. The ride itself was a bit messy but good fun. I’d forgotten my glasses and it seemed I was almost the only rider with full mudguards.. the spray off rider’s rear tyres made drafting with open eyes quite difficult!

The rain let up for a bit but then started again towards the end of the 100k ride. This time I did some of the ride alone and some of it with bunches. I didn’t get lost and managed to ride over Bison Hill and Ivinghoe Beacon this time. Unfortunately I got excited near the end at the 95k mark and took off from the bunch I was with in a dash for the line. In typical hippy fashion I must have gone straight past a turn and around the 103k mark I was in Hemel Hempstead itself. Hmm.. this can’t be right.. at 110k I was half way to Watford! Arrrgh! So I decided to forgo the nice cup of coffee and some food and my finish time and head straight home.

Now my route sheet was trashed from the damp so I ended up on some major roads.. wondering where to turn. In the end I found the A4008 and did a large about-face back to Watford, before finding a sign that said “Harrow”. So at last I was heading in the correct direction! One more wrong turn (although I picked this one up early) and I made it home with 183k on the clock! I’d taken my GPS but fat lot of good it did, running out of juice after 20k :S

Looking at my Powertap data I appear to have done about 3:50 for the 100k, which is pretty good time considering the nature of the ride and the conditions. Will be taking this week easy to recover and then Hell of the Ashdown on Feb 1st.

Training

I’ve just started to pull the finger out, as it were, with regards to training. It feels good feeling bad! Well, feeling sore from riding, if you get my drift?

Currently at a ‘feather-weight’ 93kg with a resting HR of 55bpm and a max still around 200bpm.

I’ve got less time this year to train for my big event, the Tour of Ireland Cycle Challenge since it’s in early May rather than late June for the 2008 Londres-Paris.

I’ve got a turbo trainer at home now thanks to London’s 47th most ineligible courier, wiganwill. I’ve also found a motivated ToI entrant in the form of CliveO. Last night JoeS, CliveO and myself did 3 circuits over Muswell Hill (Clive and I were riding fixed) which put a nice sting into the legs (it combined nicely with Tuesday’s club turbo and Sunday’s clubrun) before I headed over to West Drinks and then didn’t end up leaving Dancing James’s until 3:30am or something silly! Rum and tweed. Jolly good, old bean!

The Harp Hilly is on this Sunday so I’m hoping 1) not to get too drunk during Saturday’s fund-raising ‘tweed’ ride around London and 2) not get lost on the way to Hemel Hempstead again.

Gaggia Baby Class

Gaggia Baby Class espresso coffee machine

VB from LFGSS kindly supplied me with his faulty Gaggia Baby Class coffee machine.

No water was coming from the group head(?) although everything else was working as expected. Forum chatter about this machine indicated it either needed a descale or it needed a new pump.

I read Robert Harmon’s information about Gaggia maintenance, bought my self a syringe from Boots and some citric acid-based descaler from Waitrose then descaled and cleaned the unit as much as I could with no change. Using the syringe I made sure the pump was correctly primed. No change.

So, I assumed it was a faulty pump and before Christmas I ordered a replacement Gaggia pump from Happy Donkey: happydonkey.co.uk – gaggia spares

It cost ?34.88 including postage.

Update:

I’ve worked out how to pull the unit apart and found the pump. It was a complete bitch to replace this pump!

With the new pump fitted I tested the unit and exactly the same thing happened – no water came out of the head but the steam wand still worked. DAMN!!! It wasn’t the pump. Waste of time and money.. but now I’m even more determined to fix the unit!

Update:

I’ve now stripped the Gaggia right down and think I’ve found a blockage.. the copper tube inside the boiler, that dumps into the head, doesn’t let air through. I can’t see any valving between the top of the tube and the head (under the screen) so methinks this is the blocked area. Now to try and clean it out..

Update:

Right.. this machine is in about 400 pieces.. there weren’t even that many in the Gaggia schematics. 😉

Anyway, it’s not the boiler’s copper pipe->grouphead arrangement, no, it’s more complex than that. The blockage appears to be in some kind of blue electronic valve thing which controls the water FROM the boiler TO the head and from the boiler to the drain pipe. Is this the OVP? The Over Pressure Valve? Help!

It looks like Part 27 – “DM1645/001 – solenoid valve” in here:

partsguru.com – ER0182_Rev01.pdf

I’ve found spares here.. “DM1645/002 or 1152/002 Elektrovalve 120V”

partsguru.com – gaggia classic DM1645/002 or 1152/002 Elektrovalve 120V

So, after completely pulling the machine down last night and doing a bit of testing and some internet reading I have a good idea of how they work now, I know how to customise the Over Pressure Valves to produce better shots and I now know which part has failed. All I need to do now is fix/replace the solenoid valve and then I will have two working machines (or I’ll ebay the fixed one to pay for a grinder :)).

The culprit.. C.E.M.E 3-way solenoid valve..

Gaggia 3 Way Valve

toomuchcoffee.com – gaggia classic OPV issues

coffeesnobs.com.au – gaggia pressure

ruizs.org – gaggia baby pressure adjustment with OPV valve

Grange Controls Ltd. are the sole UK importer for the Italian-made C.E.M.E solenoid valve (5316VN1) I need.

They don’t stock it though. They do stock the coil but not the valve itself. If I can find a multimeter to test the coil then I might buy one from them but they have a minimum order of ?20 (since they usual deal in bulk) + ?2.50 post + VAT.

Now I need a multimeter to be sure it’s the coil and not the valve itself.. In the meantime I’ve bought a Gaggia Classic off ebay and I’m waiting for it to arrive..

Update:

My workmate Chris wanted a multimeter so I walked to Maplins and bought a UNI-T 50II for him and then used it to test the solenoid coil.

It showed the coil has resistance, which, in my limited understanding of basic electronics, means that it’s not completely trashed. This in turn means the problem might be in the 3-way valve itself. So, citric acid bath for it tonight to see if that makes a difference.

The Gaggia store in House of Fraser on Oxford St. don’t answer their phone so I called Gaggia UK’s head office and I’m waiting for a call back from their service department. Kev here suggested they are all on a coffee break 😉

Similar issue with 3-Way Valve reported here

If all the vibration from your big fat UKLA pump shakes your machine around enough over the years, the little 14mm nut that holds the coil of your 3-way solenoid to the brass valve body will become loose. If it gets as loose as mine did, it is enough to prevent the 3-way valve from actuating fully. The solenoid just moves ever so slightly on the valve body. This slight movement is enough to screw up your shots.

Pull the reservoir filler funnel off, then take a wrench and lock that thing down and all your “clogged boiler” woes will be gone. No parts to order, no need to take apart your machine.

3-Way Valve Hows and Whys

How to Backflush