At least, for the older forty litre model. In spite of other plans, today mostly turned into a day of fixing things.
The most complex one was replacement of the failed neoprene bladder in said Speidel forty litre hydropress which became rather urgent when I discovered that it had already been hired out for tomorrow.
Fortunately we’d already been shipped the replacement bladder. Speidel provide instructions for doing this, but only for the rather lovely stainless steel presses they sell now, not the ones they sold fifteen years ago which are of a slightly different design. The new instructions do at least suggest a way forward, but require the disassembly of the water inlet/outlet manifold, all the joints of which are sealed with something sufficiently strong that I began to worry about damaging the parts whilst trying to separate them. A different approach was clearly required.
I removed the nut at the top of the bladder and fiddled the metal clamp off after wiggling the bladder around to release it where it had sealed together. That allowed me to push the bladder off the top completely and remove the internal nylon baffle, a seal (which I probably should have replaced really) a spacer.
Underneath I backed off the nut that holds the inlet manifold in place against the underside of the base — the only one that isn’t actually sealed.
That gave me sufficient play in the central bladder support that I could wiggle the bottom end out and release it completely.
Reassembly with the new bladder is then the reverse of disassembly, as they say in all good Haynes manuals. Positioning of the bottom opening of the bladder is important. There’s a raised central section of the press base that the bladder needs to fit around rather than overlap.
Once everything is back together it just needs testing to check for leaks.
A quick peak inside the old one demonstrates why you don’t want water from in there mixing with your lovely apple juice.
Whilst fitting the new bladder I discovered a manufacturing date on the side so I went looking for one on the old one. Looks like it says February 2010 to me. I guess that means it doesn’t really owe us anything.
