Date: 12 Sep 2006 17:36:05
From: Alan
Subject: newish Silvia, OPV fitting different from older ones
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I was unscrewing the OPV fitting from my Silvia to install a pressure
gauge instead. I installed an adjustable OPV back on the output of the
Ulka pump and figured that the old OPV was a great place to hang a
gauge. Eric S. gave me the great idea to cut off the hose barb and tap
the hole to 1/16" female NPT so that a normal fitting will go into it
for the capillary that is leading to my pressure gauge.
When I looked at it there were two hex nuts, the back one (closest to
the bioler) was in contact with the L-shaped piece that also contains
the boiler input. The front one was the one with the hose-barb
attached which keeps the pressure against the spring in the OPV. Well,
I assumed that the back one was attacked to the boiler, so I grabbed it
(and the round part of brass with some vice grips and proceeded to
start unscrewing the crud out of the fitting with the hose barb.
It turned very hard the entire way out, but others in the past had
described this, so I wasn't too worried, however at some point it just
stopped unscrewing. I undid the vice grips and the whole thing fell
out including the second hex nut, but now it is halfway down the
fitting. The threaded portion of the fitting with the barb attached is
about an inch long and the threads in the OPV don't start until pretty
deep in the brass part that is attached to the boiler. This seems
really different from the old pictures posted by Matt Smith long ago.
So evidently Rancilio at some point stopped just using a gasket to set
the pressure and instead seem to have screwed and glued a hex nut onto
the fitting and made it much longer.
Now my problem is that it seems to have gotten cross-threaded in the
halfway position and I don't seem to be able to screw it either
direction. Maybe I can carefully cut it off or something...
Anyway, just thought I would let people know that those instructions
may need some updating.
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