The subject is an old worn out Conti, originally sold through Illi distributer and now parked hopelessly in an Ethiopian restaurant. Not working at all - no heat, water flows mysteriously into the drip tray from behind the groups and 1 group has a trickle while the other is dead. The group that has a trickle leaks everywhere. Group gaskets are petrified. When it did heat up it emitted a steaming sound from inside.
Why would anyone service this unit?
Well... The owner seatbelted it into her car (on its side) - leaking water onto the seat - with her little boy along for the ride - and drove 4 hours because no-one in her area would touch it... I couldn't refuse.
Work:
replace burnt heater
rebuild both groups
rebuild 1 flowmeter
rebuild 1 opv strangely placed in front of the refill valve
replace overheat safety valve and level probe
old heater was leaking directly onto the poorly situated motor which grew some strange green fuzz.
All of the gaskets I tried to order were for newer models and was not able to find parts for this older one. ended up using pavoni europicola boiler gaskets on the group head. Used old worn o-rings with teflon and locktight to fuse the groups onto the boiler. Not pretty but effective.
After all of that - it works. That is the best I can say for it.
