@DavecUK , thank you. I had to remove those fittings because they were leaking, And since they were off, before I put the teflon tape I thought I would do the cold descaling operation. And I stand by the decision because there was no way I would have been able to remove that much scale with the standard descaling process (huge flakes, heavy deposits). Image below shows probably less than 20% of what I got out.
I ran the descaling process to the best of my ability, machine is up and running, but it seems like the grouphead is leaking so I will assess and probably do another cold descale when I opne the brew boiler to change the gasket. Parts are on the way
