Hi all, I recently purchased a second-hand Quickmill Andreja from someone off eBay which was in working order and seemed fine on the surface of things, however I wanted to take it back to zero so to speak and dismantle and clean everything so I knew all was in good condition. I'm extremely glad I did as so far I've found some pretty messy and dangerous things, and thought I'd share a run through with everyone so anyone wanting to attempt the same thing is pre-armed with more info than I had (virtually none!).
Just to clarify, I have zero experience taking coffee machines apart. I'd say I'm somewhat technical and curious, which is always helpful! I'd say so far (I've not finished yet) the process of taking everything apart has taken about 4 hours, cleaning it has taken probably 2 or 3, and I'm sure putting it back together will take 3 or so. I'll detail everything I used and bought as I go. So, here goes...
I got the Andreja and a Mazzer Mini E for £800. In retrospect I should have paid less - probably £650 or £700 would have seemed better considering the time I need to spend on Andreja. The Mazzer is totally fine, just needed a clear of the burrs (and they were pretty fine anyway), but the Andreja isn't in the best of states. The guy I bought them from was a nice chap, but unfortunately I was pretty naive when purchasing - I didn't remove the e61 mushroom (which I knew I should, I just didn't feel I could as I didn't know how hard it would be to do so I skipped doing it) and I didn't open the machine to look inside. Both of these would have helped a lot, though in fairness I'm not sure it's normal to dismantle a coffee machine you are about to purchase! Here is what they looked like when I got them home, nice!
So I started making coffee with it, I used to have a Rancilio Silvia and I got a bit obsessive with it, so I thought I'd be kindof ok at pulling a decent shot, how wrong I was - they were absolutely crappy! Something I noticed was that the water tasted a little odd, not particularly bad, just a bit...hard, so I decided I'd take the mushroom off, here is what I found:
To me this looked kindof scaled but I had no idea really - I later found (from Frank, aka El Carajilo) that it was "exceedingly scaled", which wasn't the best to find out! Anyhow, I soaked the mushroom in white vinegar, and also poured some in the grouphead (from the top where the mushroom was) and let it do its work, it came out pretty good (sorry no pic, I've got some later though...).
Anyway, the next day my curiosity got the better of me and I took the case off the machine, here were the innards:
I had no idea really what to expect, though I did think the boiler looked a bit cruddy, and the insulation looked a bit old, but after all the machine was nine years old so what should I expect? I did notice that the bottom tray was fairly dirty and looked a little wet - I wasn't too sure what to make of that, it didn't look alarming really, just dirty, so I cleaned it and closed it back up for another day.
A day later I started ringing round to see who would service the machine, basically I wanted a descale and though I knew I could do it myself I had read that descaling an old machine (that had not been descaled frequently) could cause scale to break off and block things up, so I thought I'd get a professional to do it. I found out it's actually pretty hard to find someone to service your coffee machine! Everyone said commercial only except Bella Barista, but they wanted £200 and although that is probably reasonable, it felt like a hell of a lot to me just to get a descale done! Interestingly, some of the other service guys said (after I showed them the machine) that they would do it - I suppose they don't expect most home users to have an e61 machine so they just say no. If anyone wants a list of the people that said yes, give me a shout.
That night, I had some energy (!) and decided to do the service myself. The first thing I did (after removing the case) was to take photos from all angles I could imagine so I knew how to get it all back together again...
The top of the boiler did not look healthy. I later asked Frank about this and he said the anti-vac valve was probably spitting water out, and it had messed up the temperature limit stat (the one with the red wires going to it) and probably the boiler pressure release safety valve (the tall one in the middle):
I took off the water and steam pipes, and also the boiler pressure gauge pipe and what I know to be the pressure limit stat, but at the time I called it "thing"!
![:whistle:]()
The temperature limit stat looked worse for wear:
I then disconnected the brew pressure gauge pipe, the unit that goes in to the top of the HX pipe (sorry no idea what it's called, it has a silicone tube on the bottom though), and the pipes to the e61 (i disconnected these from the e61 end, then later removed them from the boiler end). I then disconnected the boiler water supply and the bolt holding the boiler the bottom of the machine. I then finally disconnected all the wires needed (I labelled where they came from) and I could remove the boiler!
This was the boiler removed:
My plan was to remove the heating element (the same as urbanbumpkin did), but I'll cover that later on...
Next I cleaned out the inside, before and after:
Continued in next post...
Just to clarify, I have zero experience taking coffee machines apart. I'd say I'm somewhat technical and curious, which is always helpful! I'd say so far (I've not finished yet) the process of taking everything apart has taken about 4 hours, cleaning it has taken probably 2 or 3, and I'm sure putting it back together will take 3 or so. I'll detail everything I used and bought as I go. So, here goes...
I got the Andreja and a Mazzer Mini E for £800. In retrospect I should have paid less - probably £650 or £700 would have seemed better considering the time I need to spend on Andreja. The Mazzer is totally fine, just needed a clear of the burrs (and they were pretty fine anyway), but the Andreja isn't in the best of states. The guy I bought them from was a nice chap, but unfortunately I was pretty naive when purchasing - I didn't remove the e61 mushroom (which I knew I should, I just didn't feel I could as I didn't know how hard it would be to do so I skipped doing it) and I didn't open the machine to look inside. Both of these would have helped a lot, though in fairness I'm not sure it's normal to dismantle a coffee machine you are about to purchase! Here is what they looked like when I got them home, nice!
So I started making coffee with it, I used to have a Rancilio Silvia and I got a bit obsessive with it, so I thought I'd be kindof ok at pulling a decent shot, how wrong I was - they were absolutely crappy! Something I noticed was that the water tasted a little odd, not particularly bad, just a bit...hard, so I decided I'd take the mushroom off, here is what I found:
To me this looked kindof scaled but I had no idea really - I later found (from Frank, aka El Carajilo) that it was "exceedingly scaled", which wasn't the best to find out! Anyhow, I soaked the mushroom in white vinegar, and also poured some in the grouphead (from the top where the mushroom was) and let it do its work, it came out pretty good (sorry no pic, I've got some later though...).
Anyway, the next day my curiosity got the better of me and I took the case off the machine, here were the innards:
I had no idea really what to expect, though I did think the boiler looked a bit cruddy, and the insulation looked a bit old, but after all the machine was nine years old so what should I expect? I did notice that the bottom tray was fairly dirty and looked a little wet - I wasn't too sure what to make of that, it didn't look alarming really, just dirty, so I cleaned it and closed it back up for another day.
A day later I started ringing round to see who would service the machine, basically I wanted a descale and though I knew I could do it myself I had read that descaling an old machine (that had not been descaled frequently) could cause scale to break off and block things up, so I thought I'd get a professional to do it. I found out it's actually pretty hard to find someone to service your coffee machine! Everyone said commercial only except Bella Barista, but they wanted £200 and although that is probably reasonable, it felt like a hell of a lot to me just to get a descale done! Interestingly, some of the other service guys said (after I showed them the machine) that they would do it - I suppose they don't expect most home users to have an e61 machine so they just say no. If anyone wants a list of the people that said yes, give me a shout.
That night, I had some energy (!) and decided to do the service myself. The first thing I did (after removing the case) was to take photos from all angles I could imagine so I knew how to get it all back together again...
The top of the boiler did not look healthy. I later asked Frank about this and he said the anti-vac valve was probably spitting water out, and it had messed up the temperature limit stat (the one with the red wires going to it) and probably the boiler pressure release safety valve (the tall one in the middle):
I took off the water and steam pipes, and also the boiler pressure gauge pipe and what I know to be the pressure limit stat, but at the time I called it "thing"!
The temperature limit stat looked worse for wear:
I then disconnected the brew pressure gauge pipe, the unit that goes in to the top of the HX pipe (sorry no idea what it's called, it has a silicone tube on the bottom though), and the pipes to the e61 (i disconnected these from the e61 end, then later removed them from the boiler end). I then disconnected the boiler water supply and the bolt holding the boiler the bottom of the machine. I then finally disconnected all the wires needed (I labelled where they came from) and I could remove the boiler!
This was the boiler removed:
My plan was to remove the heating element (the same as urbanbumpkin did), but I'll cover that later on...
Next I cleaned out the inside, before and after:
Continued in next post...
