I replaced the steam boiler element and thought I'd pass along my experience as well. I'd read the experiences from others here and here's what I did. I ordered some Loctite 567 from eBay since I'd read where some people would have leaks after a couple days when using only tape. I found the yellow gas tape at Lowe's and next to it was some gray tape for water connections. I bought both and measured with calipers and they are the same thickness. Rather than remove the boiler from the machine made my morning coffee and, after shutting it off, I ran the hot water wand until no steam came out. I let it sit for about 45 minutes and turned the machine on its side. I loosened the allen screws holding the plastic cap under the steam boiler and used a 1.5" socket on my 20 volt battery powered impact wrench. The large nut was out in less than 15 seconds and there was no water to spill. I cleaned up the outside of the boiler, looked inside to be sure it had no crud, wrapped the new element with about three wraps of the grey tape and popped it in the boiler with the impact wrench. I stopped once I could see the nut wasn't turning. Turned everything back upright, connected the wires, turned on the water, then the machine and everything's working with no leaks. If leaks develop I'll use the Loctite.
After everything I read about swapping elements I was pleasantly surprised at how quick this went. Make sure you've got an impact wrench with a 1.5" socket (38mm would be best but I couldn't find one) and you won't have to remove the boilder. -- 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.
