# Used Gaggia Machine - Stuck Pipe



## nightslayer (May 29, 2016)

So I've just traded my rather well-maintained Gaggia Classic for a friend's, because his has a PID attached and he didn't want to detach it and sell it separately to me (it was a good enough deal that I was willing to risk maintenance issues). He mentioned that he has neither backflushed nor descaled, so I get the machine and start opening things up.

Firstly a question about descaling - I filled the tank with citric acid solution (1 dessert spoon of food grade citric acid granules off ebay into 1l of water), ran it through the grouphead and steam wand cold, let it sit for 15 minutes, ran it again, let it sit for another 10, then ran everything out and flushed it out with fresh water. He mentioned that he uses bottled or filtered water, but I was expecting at least some minimal amounts of scale - but my solution came out practically clear. Any issues with that?

Next I cleaned out the showerhead and screen, both were caked with a layer of black oil. Now on to the real problem - the drain pipe seems to be stuck from massive amounts of built-up solenoid-release residue. Anyone knows how I could dislodge this? I loosened the nut and took it out, but the pipe is stuck into the head of the release pipe coming out from the solenoid itself. I've been removing the water tank by taking out the nut and pushing the whole pipe into the body of the machine, but that is inconvenient and merely a stopgap measure. Second question - anyone knows what I could do about removing a drain pipe stuck into a pipe head by congealed coffee oils due to a lack of backflushing?


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## Billy Gunn (Nov 18, 2013)

Simplest way i can think of is to pull the brass fitting off the black hose, and leave it sitting in some pully caff/cafiza solution to dissolve the gunk. Might need to warm up the hose to soften it up but some hot water should take care of it.

Failing that, just keep backflushing in the hope that every time the solenoid opens and vents it slowly softens up the deposits that have been left there.


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## gaggiamanualservice.com (Dec 22, 2009)

I have had that issue. I used gas torch to heat join up then gently prized off.


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