So I'm completely stuck on getting my temp sensor removed. I tried top file all the gunk from around edges, and a 2 ft breaker bar, but no luck. My question is, how powerful an impact wrench do I need? Does it need to be an air gun, or can I use one of those Ryobis they sell at Home Depot for a 100 bucks?
On Monday, July 16, 2012 12:35:00 AM UTC-5, Eric Christoffersen wrote: > > Hi All, > > About 3 weeks ago my 8 year old brewtus 2 stopped heating up. Pid showed > room temp. Checked the usual: no steam leaking from reverse pressure relief > valve, the overtemp switches on top of boilers were untripped and had > continuity. I couldn't see anything wrong. > > Called WLL, they said it could be a heating element and told me how to > diagnose. Sure enough the brew boiler heating element had 200ohms of > resistance, shows continuity with multitester. The steam boiler heating > element had many thousands/no continuity. > > Called back to order heating element. After taking my order tech helpfully > suggested I could swich the bottom two wires on the pstat which causes > heating priority to go to brew boiler (brew boiler previously didn't get > hot because prioritized steam boiler never warmed.) This would keep me in > the coffee until I could replace the steam boiler's heating element. > > Wow. Super helpful tech. Quick with answers and nice. > > Over the years I've had a fair bit of experience with the brewtus' insides: > - Many rebuilds of reverse pressure relief valve (high temp o-ring > replaced every two years) > - On off switch (brittle and broke) > - Original controller died replaced with pid/new temp sensor > - PStat (leaked steam, then broke) > - Both overtemp sensors (plastic rotted) > - Replaced OPV (mine was old bad original one and couldn't adjust brew > pressure to be low enough, got the nice new one with brass screw, highly > recommended) > > Overall I gotta say this wasn't the hardest job. Most involved was putting > in the pid kit. Total time was maybe 4 hours, not including the drive to > service station, but including all the extra futzing like building new > insulation. > > I'm not going to walk through the whole thing but offer some suggestions: > 1) Don't even try to get the heating element out with your puny tools. > Forget the 4 foot breaker bar. I have a huge vice and a big wrench and I > couldn't make it budge. Finally I went to a local service station > and borrowed their air gun with correct socket. Clamp boiler in a vice and > the element comes out in about 10 seconds with no hassle or damage. > Unbelievable how effective the air gun's rattle action is. > 2) If your machine is old like mine each fittng will be stuck and come > loose with a clank or creak. Be sure and have a variety of open wrenches > available. You'll use at least 5 different sizes. Hopefully you have some > with small heads because some fittings are are difficult to reach. Be SURE > to support whatever the fitting is screwed into with another wrench. Come > on, invest in some good tools. Get a FULL set of high quality open ended > wrenches, a good phillips, some hex sockets and a socket wrench. With good > tools this job is make much easier. Keep the adjustable wrenches away from > the brass, too easy to damage the fittings (assuming you can even reach). > Some of the craftsman are nice. > 3) Have a big roll of teflon tape handy for reassembly. There's lots of > fittings to wrap when you reassemble. Stuff works great to seal and aids > disassembly. Everything I've previously reassembled with teflon comes > straight out, so do it for next time. > 4) The steam boiler is hard to remove. Not sure the right way but I took > out the brew boiler so that I had room to unwind the steam boiler from a > pipe that goes in its base. > 5) The steam boiler has many fittings and two are for its heat exchanger. > My heat exchanger was full of scale. Tons of it. Rest of machine was very > clean. Took 20/30 minutes to clean all that scale out. I used a screw > driver to break up the pieces then filled the boiler and shook it to pour > out the flakes. Got it all out. > 6) When washing the steam boiler the thin fiberglass insulation all broken > up and washed away. Had to make a new blanky for the steam boiler. I used > some wool felt I had around. We'll see how that lasts. Machine is certainly > quieter now. > 7) The busted element looked fine. Nothing wrong except no continuity so > broken inside somehow. > 8) Machine will brew with no heat in steam boiler, but has trouble holding > temp for a shot. Takes a while to heatup. Not good. Very happy to have > steam boiler back to provide hot refill to brew boiler. > 9) Wrap all the threads on the boiler with teflon before you put the > boilers back into the machine. > 10) Almost all my plastic spade connector covers are yellow and super > brittle. They shattered on touch. I built new covers using outdoor rated > heat shrink electrical tubing. Local electronic store sells it for $3 for 4 > feet. The wires to the steam boiler's heating elemet also looked like > they'd seen heat and water. I covered them with heat shrink too. > 11) When restarting machine remember to refill both boilers by running > pump. Do it before machine has a chance to get hot. Keep water handy to > refill water tank while this is happening.Fortunately my tubing and pump > still had prime so worked great. Took a few minutes before water came out > of brew head. > > Started machine up, noticed it takes longer to heat up when steam boiler > has priority. Worked first time, pulled a shot of vivace and all was well > again. Oh, and machine seems lots quieter with the large felt blanket on > the steam boiler. > > Cheers, > Eric > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. 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