I had the same problem so I took mine apart. To answer some other people’s questions. You can remove the screen with your fingers if you can get three fingers on the outer edges with a little grip strength. The screen is held in place by an o-ring that’s slightly oversized than the inner diameter of the screen. Pinch the outer edges and pull, it’ll come off if your fingers can get good purchase. I don’t recommend using a tool to do this. It would probably mar the metal or possibly bend the screen, which wouldn't be great. Then there’s the five screws. After you get the screws off, you’ll have the same problem to get the inner piece out. I got mine apart by placing the base of the coffeejack in my palm and very gently pushed the plunger with my other hand and the inner piece will pop out with a bit of force on the piston (be gentle and use very little force). Once apart the rest just comes apart with no effort.
After it was apart, the problem was instantly very clear. There are two o-rings on the piston to keep the seal and build pressure. One of the o-rings was damaged by the assembler, with the small piece of chipped rubber falling out of the piston receiver. This was the source of water blowing by the two seals and ejecting out of the top of the piston receiver like a geyser with every stroke (oh yeah, forgot to mention that boiling hot water shot my palm while making my first cup—I wasn’t very happy about that). Upon further inspection, a second o-ring was also damaged on the inner disk which would also permit water to blow by in an uncontrolled manner, thus not allowing for the pressures necessary to make a real espresso golden shot with crema as shown in the demonstration video Ashley and Michael have been instructing the individuals in this forum when reporting issues (that are probably attributed to poor assembly similar to what I have discovered in mine).
The coffeejack itself is an impressively designed device whose sole functionality is strictly dependent on these o-rings. So I’m going to ask the question. Why the fuck isn’t at least one spare o-ring kit come with this thing? I, like many other people here, have been extremely sympathetic and patient with the challenges this product endured through its development, and I was sooooo excited to get it today because I’ve wanted this to come for so long, but I’m super disappointed right now. As of this point, I’m staring at busted o-rings instead of a nice espresso martini. If at least one spare o-ring kit was included in this box, I would be making martinis, dammit, instead of writing a shitty-gram how-to on this forum.
Hopefully this helps some people on here, because I know there are people out there that are just as disappointed as I am.
Do you have a close up picture of the bottom screen and how it’s supposed to be held in place, as my bottom screen seems to fall off, with very little effort. If I run some hot water through, to warm it up, with no basket in place, the bottom screen just pops off.
Wow thanks for the great write up. Still waiting for mine and trusting the spare o-rings I ordered ship with the unit, I'm sure you know if you measure the o-rings with a caliper you should be able to find spares to at least get you through until they start addressing the ever mounting pile of "out of the box" failures.