Depending on where it's leaking...you have five possible connections. In all cases, you must support the valve assembly with one wrench while tightening something else with another wrench. Otherwise you will twist the valve assembly and ruin your water line.
Also, do this with the machine COLD, unless you like steam burns! 1--The valve assembly attaches inside the machine to the water line. If memory serves, this is a flare fitting, meaning it has no gasket and seals via compression. The line is copper (soft) and so it shouldn't take much. 2--The chrome nut/thread that the water line attaches to is screwed to the valve housing, also with a flare fitting. This is not normally removed for service, etc. and I'd be surprised if it's leaking. If you can't get this one to seal, you could add teflon tape to the threads. 3--The valve stem itself (i.e. the part that the black star knob is attached to) has two o-rings on its shaft, as well as a white nylon seat at its end. The white nylon seal commonly fails due to overtightening. You can carefully pry the white nylon seal out and turn it over to extend its life. The o-rings don't fail often in my experience, but they should be easily found at the local hardware store and/or online at Chris Coffee, WLL, Espresso Parts, etc. If possible, put a little food-grade silicon grease on the o-rings before reassembly. 4--the chrome threaded cap that goes over/around the valve stem does not seal anything--it just acts to complete the assembly and to keep the valve stem from being able to screw out all the way (giving the user a straight jet of steam in the face). 5--The wand itself has a white nylon gasket between the big nut that holds the wand in place, and the valve assembly. Again, a pretty rare failure, but it has happened to me once in 6 years or so. For me, the most likely culprits would be #3 above. A failed nylon seal shows up as water dribbling out of the end of the wand all the time. Failed o-rings show up as water dribbling out from behind the star knob. Also check #5, it is another easy check/fix that doesn't require the assembly to be removed from the machine. In both cases, look for cracks/chips/etc. on the seals and replace as needed. One charming thing about the white nylon seal--I have never been able to find it by itself; I've had to order the valve stem and/or the whole valve assembly instead. So I have an extra assembly or two. If you need the white nylon wand seal, let me know, I have extra and can send you one. Anyone know what type of plastic the wand/valve seal is? We should set up a collective to make the seals for the $0.10 they actually cost, instead of buying extra parts we don't need. best, bmc p.s. I can send you a picture of all this if it would help. Sent from my apple IIe On Jun 26, 2014, at 6:30, brian <[email protected]> wrote: > I've got a two year old IV-R and it's dripping a little water around the > steam wand attachments. I assume there are O rings to be replaced but thought > I'd ask here before taking it apart. I assume I could use high pressure > thread goop as well. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Brewtus" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
