Gasket and shower screen
What is under the group
The manual covers brushing the shower screen and nothing more. Gaggia's manual does not cover this, and its safety booklet says repairs are only for a service centre authorised by Gaggia. The next two screens follow the 2019 Classic service manual and the retailer Whole Latte Love, who says its method serves every version of the Classic.
From the bottom up: one centre screw, the shower screen, two socket screws, the shower holder plate, and the gasket in its groove round the rim.
Gaggia gives no interval. Whole Latte Love suggests a new gasket and screen every year, or every 2 to 3 years for a silicone gasket, and says a handle that travels well past centre is the sign of a worn one.
Take the screen and plate off
A retailer's method (Whole Latte Love), with the key size from the 2019 Classic service manual.
- Switch off, unplug and let the machine go cold. Take out the tank, the drip tray and the filter holder.
- Undo the centre screw and take the shower screen off.
- Clear the coffee out of the two screw sockets so the key seats, then undo both with a 5 mm hex key.
- Lever the plate out with a flat screwdriver if it sticks, and clean it. Its four water holes must be clear.
- Clear the hole in the brass group body that did not have a screw in it. The retailer says this hole is only on the brass-group machines, from 2023 on.
The retailer's technician turns the machine upside down for this. A stubby screwdriver fits with it upright.
Gasket out, new one in
Still the retailer's method.
- Drive a pointed, coarse-threaded screw (a wood screw) into the old gasket. As it bottoms in the groove it jacks the gasket out. Pull on the screw.
- A hard gasket comes out in pieces: pick the rest out, then clean and dry the groove.
- Push the new gasket in.
- Refit the plate and its two screws, then the screen and the centre screw.
- Lock the filter holder in firmly a couple of times to seat the gasket.
The 2019 service manual tightens the two plate screws to 6.5 Nm and the centre screw to 4.0 Nm. Those figures were set for the 2019 machine.
Gaggia's list calls the part a silicone gasket and gives no size. UK sellers list it by number as 72 × 57 × 8.5 mm. Order by the number.