It's a little hard to confirm with the audio clips, but I strongly suspect that solenoid valve. The valve is not opening, so water can't flow, and the pump makes an awful racket. It would do it about 1 in 5 times on my machine after some years of ownership, and given my timer turns on the machine at 5am and we sleep in a downstairs master bedroom, the "machine gun" noise was not welcome by my wife. That valve is apparently a huge deal to replace due to where it sits, so every time I pull a shot with my machine, I pull some water from the hot water wand to activate the solenoid valve and refill the boiler. Doing that daily seems to be keeping that piston loose and moving, and cross fingers it will stay that way. I'd suggest do the same for a week or so, and see if that "loosens" it up. If not, you might be looking at replacement of that valve, that's no small project.
On Monday, September 21, 2020 at 12:48:40 PM UTC-4 jjk3 wrote: > Bill, > > Just wondering if you ever resolved this issue. I think I may have a > similar issue and also suspected the solenoid valve. > > On Monday, August 17, 2020 at 4:50:37 PM UTC-4 wsmckenz wrote: > >> So my rotary pump just started getting really noisy, but only when it is >> filling the steam boiler. >> >> It is a BIII circa 2007. >> >> I attached short sound clips. The one named steam.mp3 is of me opening >> the water wand for a second and then the sound of the pump topping up the >> steam boiler, where you'll hear the rattle. The one named brew.mp3 is the >> sound when I just run some water through the portafilter for a couple of >> seconds. Much quieter. >> >> I thought it might be the vacuum relief valve, so I took it apart and >> cleaned it. Now it is just hissing all the time; so much for cleaning. So >> I'm ordering a new vacuum breaker. But I don't think it is the culprit for >> the noise. It almost sounds like it's coming from the 2-way solenoid valve. >> >> ideas? >> >> ~Bill >> > -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/brewtus/1014a006-4aec-40a2-be6d-c1f97b5c6b31n%40googlegroups.com.
