Hello đź‘‹
My Gaggia Classic (2003) currently won’t produce any water through the group, and I’m hoping someone can help me diagnose the issue 🙏.
The Symptoms:
- No water (at all) through the group head
- With the steam valve open, water flows at high pressure from the steam wand (so the pump is presumably fine)
- With the steam valve closed, water flows back into the tank via the OPV
Sounds like a blocked solenoid, but I don’t think it is.
Attempts to Fix:
- I’ve stripped everything down and descaled the boiler, OPV, and the solenoid (I can easily poke/wiggle a pin around through the small holes, and can blow air through them). I’m pretty confident the solenoid valve is not blocked (photo attached). The piston looks fine, and moves fine when I’ve got it all taken apart.
- I’ve taken all connections out and reconnected them
- I’ve tried switching the steam on and off with the brew switch activated to try and dislodge the piston (though - as mentioned already - I’m confident it’s not stuck)
Observations:
- I’ve had some fairly violent sounding rattling when pulling shots recently, and this happened just before I lost all water to the group
- I recently installed a PID - everything worked fine for 2 days after this though
- The shot before I lost water to the group, I thought I smelt something funny from the switchback, but I might have been imagining that…
Is this likely just a fault solenoid valve, with the fix being to just order a new one? Is there a way to test whether it’s faulty? (I’ve tried listening/feeling for the piston moving, but there’s no sign of it - I also don’t know what it should sound/feel like though).
Help much appreciated - thanks!
Ben
(![](https://i.imgur.com/mnTKcQQ.jpeg)