Peter, Thanks for your reply as well. I'm not intentionally ignoring good advice. I was just in a bi

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Hello all, I've been offered a La Cimbali M21 Junior at a very good price, but this will be my first machine and before I drop a pile of money, I wonder if there isn't a buyer's guide out there as to watch to check (like a used car?) when I go to look at it, pick it up. What do I check for? How can I tell if it's been properly serviced. How can I tell if it's been maintained? How can I tell if it's not been maintained (things like regular back flushing) It was previously used at a restaurant so I can only hope the staff treated it right. I'm handy and don't mind fixing or replacing something, but I'd rather not buy an expensive machine that will immediately need many hundreds of dollars expresso online of service/repair. Thank you, -Mathew MathewC   Posts: 11 Joined: Nov 22, 2013 Location: Northern VA, USA
First of all, the Junior comes in either plumbed or pour over tank versions. You'll expresso online want to determine which it is and what works for you (basically, if it's plumbed will it work in your house?) Next, can you try it out in it's current location? This will tell you if it's working reasonably expresso online well. Make sure it pumps water, heats up etc. Maybe make an espresso or three with it. As to backflushing and descaling, you have a few options. First, ask the owner what the maintenance schedule has been. I know of one local restaurant where they do no back-flushing or descaling (nor do they really have any idea how to make espresso). To check yourself you could remove the temperature probe from the boiler (requires removal of a fair bit of tin and I think about a 15mm wrench) to see if there's any scale there, but to truly check requires emptying the boiler and removing the heating element - a bit of a chore. For backflushing, if the 3-way works, it's probably fine. Check for overall cleanliness of the gasket and remove the dispersion screen and check for gunk. Realistically, though, if this is a very good price and it works, it's likely a pretty expresso online good deal and things like descaling and cleaning up from lack of backflushing is well worth it. The only expensive repairs on these are the brain box (~$300.00 to repair if you do it yourself). They are a great machine. darilon   expresso online Posts: 127 Joined: Jan 12, 2009 Location: British Columbia
Hey Mike, thanks for the reply! I bought the machine this weekend, and honestly, it's looking rough. But, it was pretty damn cheap. Here are the pictures of it's neglect and abuse: http://imgur.com/a/ds97Y I've plumbed it in and determined already that it needs a new anti-vac valve as described here: http://www.popovic.info/html/entlueftug...ieren.html I'm positive it will need a new group head gasket. Chris coffee the best place for that? (I'm in the U.S.) It didn't come with a tamper, so can't even really test it with coffee yet either. I was assured that this thing worked, which, right now it clearly doesn't, so if you see something expresso online that makes you think I should cut my losses and send it back, let me know. Thanks! MathewC   Posts: 11 Joined: Nov 22, 2013 Location: Northern VA, USA
Actually looks pretty good. Only 8 years old. No evidence of serious leaks, nothing broken. Lots of use. Not sure if it was ever back flushed. Before you order parts, you may want to really clean and do some disassembly, such as the group head. It could be packed with grounds. And look inside the boiler. Otherwise you will be making a dozen orders. Cafeparts.com. and northwest espresso parts are good for Commerical machine parts. Don't take this badly, but you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know anything. No worries, tons of information out there. But no one is going to hold your hand to restore a Commerical one group. Before asking too many trivial questions, search and read the many restoration threads on this site and CG. And you should read the espresso.restorations.com site cover to cover. Personally, I am shocked by the quality of the restoration threads out there. People have spent hours documenting their had work, tons of photos. Study the threads and search out answers. It seems that darilon above already gave you good advice and homework. Did you do what he suggested? It's a very good machine in good condition and needs a bunch of cleaning. It will be worth the hard work and tons of learning you will need to do. WWBeagle   Posts: 36 Joined: Jul 17, 2013 Location: Denver Website
Peter, Thanks for your reply as well. I'm not intentionally ignoring good advice. I was just in a bit of a time crunch before I could call this guy back, tell him the machine didn't work and get my money back, so I was flying into this pretty blind. I'm keeping the machine despite the claims from the seller that it is working and was kept in good