A long while ago I received a La Pavoni Europiccola built in the 1970s. The Europiccola is a lever operated espresso machine, meaning it will heat up water, but you get the honor/burden of pulling down a level to push the water through the beans. Some say it yields a superior espresso, I like it for the hipster credit. I goofed big time with the first Europiccola, I scratched the boiler and gave it a dent (oops). I also was unable to revive the heating element, which as far as I can tell is a goner (not my fault). I bought a new one in late 2015 initially to use for parts, but I have decided to rebuild that one instead. Still the same model, but in better condition heating element wise.
When I turned on the beast for the first time, steam and hot water belched from the top of the sight glass tube on the side. Seemed fishy. After further investigations, I found the sight glass tube had a piece broken off, so it didn’t seal properly. I tried a few replacement tubes but none of them fit the seals. They were all too small. It seems the original tube is a puzzling 8.72mm in diameter, not a standard by any means. The allegedly OEM replacement I had was 8.0mm. Like a good engineer, I suspected the seals were to blame, so I did my best to extract them from the sight glass tube sockets. Turns out the seals have seen better days. I’m not even sure what to call them. They’re not quite o-rings, but they aren’t gaskets. It looks like La Pavoni formed the seals in the machine by pouring in the rubber around the glass. I arrived at this conclusion because the seal has few threads molded into it, and it has a few portions that appear to wrap around the sight glass. See the picture for a better view.
The best course of action is to find a small bit of EPDM rubber (which can handle the temperature and pressure) pour it into the sight glass sockets to cure. All the while keeping the rubber from flowing into the boiler. Seems like a walk in the park no? Ha. As if.