1979 Electrolux 502 "High Suction"

[jmurray01]

Here she is! Bought her for £2.99 from eBay and she arrived today (5 days after dispatch - yeah, Parcelforce rocks...).

When I got her out of the box she looked a bit rough and ready, but I wouldn't say ugly. No vintage Electrolux looks ugly, no matter how beaten and battered!

Not that she was beaten and battered, just general wear and tare to the bodywork.

First of all I saw to the technical bits, lubricating the brush roll bearings, cleaning out the brush roll (when I slid the brush strips out I found the hollow inside of the roll was PACKED with dust), fitting a belt and bag (no filters were with it and I'm still waiting on ones arriving through the post but the bag is a good enough filter for now).

Then I gave it a quick test to see it worked on the rug in the hall with the dust that came out of the brush roll and hey presto the 425W motor fired into life right as I turned the socket on, much to my surprise as I thought I had the switch at the off position, but it seems to be the opposite of my 502S power switch. Strange!

Anyway, it ran well and picked up the dust no problem BUT I did notice the high pitched noise the seller mentioned. It happens every now and then. Sometimes it will sound nice and quiet then suddenly it will sound like finger nails scraping a black board! I'm thinking maybe the carbon brushes are hitting the commutator ?

Since I determined it worked I turned it off and got to work making her look fantastic.

Didn't take much work, just some water with Fairy Liquid and a cloth. Then after that I brought the paint up like new with some furniture polish. Bliss...

Then I remembered I should have checked the plug before doing anything so I did that, to find a perfectly wired plug (that's rare!) but a 13 AMP fuse in it. Tut tut, not too safe. So I put a 3 AMP in and that was her mini-restoration complete.

I then gave her a longer test by vacuuming the entire upstairs and although the high pitched noise reoccurred every now and then she picked up brilliantly (the "High Suction" is very true) and I could hear the beater bar grooming the carpet as the brushes swept it. It is a great mini Hoover! Ha ha.

Anyway, here are the pictures and if you have any information on the noise, please let me know!

 

[jmurray01]

Picture two...

 

[rutger]

£2.99 for that, wow, bargain !

Really nice vacuum, the styling is fabulous.

Dave

 

[rutger]

I meant to add, what's the round plug type thing for on the back low down? Is that where tools attach?

Dave

 

[jmurray01]

That is where the hose inserts.

Yes, I agree the 500 Series were beautiful Vacuum Cleaners!

 

[singingrainbow]

Jamie, I just found this but you might have seen this already.

 

[jmurray01]

Yep I've seen that, not a bad advert for the 70s.

Electrolux did make good money with selling the 500 Series, especially the 502 and 502S as they were lower priced than the 550 the 560-Electronic.

 

[vintagerepairer]

Jamie, this is a later model as the dust box is like that of the 504 with a long label. But how do you know it is from 1979? The 3 amp fuse will be a much safer bet, but I should tell you that even the instructions for these cleaners recommended a 13 amp fuse. This would have been techinically too large to protect the size of flex used on this model, but too small a fuse runs the risk of a fuse blowing on start up. But I do know from experience that these cleaners will work off a 3 amp fuse.

 

[jmurray01]

It was a guess to be honest with you Benny. They ran from '75 to '79 and since I realised the strip on the bin was extended to the bottom unlike the early ones, I just said '79 as in my eyes that would be about right.

 

[vintagerepairer]

I forgot to tell you that the 500 and a good deal of the 502 cleaners had the mains switch upside down. This was how it was meant to be and was described as being like this in the booklet. A few late 502 cleaners had it the right way.

 

[jmurray01]

I see, it did surprise me when it jumped into life even with the switch on what I thought was off!

I wonder why they did that then changed it for the 502S ? Can't see the logic in it myself.

 

[jmurray01]

Oh and Benny, you couldn't shed some light on the finger nails over a blackboard noise it is making intermittently could you ? I imagine you'd know the answer in a second but you haven't mentioned it.

 

[jmurray01]

And another question (sorry), was the handle meant to be cream even though the rest of the cleaner is green ?

 

[vintagerepairer]

The handles were always an odd shade of green and did not fade like the rest on it. I don't know what the noise is unless it's the bag full whistle. The upside down switch was a carry on from the 500 but why they did this when the 504 didn't I don't know. All I know is that the 502 was a tiny bit earlier than the 504 so maybe it was because the instruction books had already been printed to say the switch started the cleaner when pushed up. I know the 500 book mentions this.

 

[jmurray01]

I did think the whistle, but it is coming from the cleaning head and thus; the motor.

I'll keep using it and if it blows up, ah well. Could just be one of those things that don't do any harm and you grow accustomed to.

For now I'll put it down to "character"!

 

[vintagerepairer]

It could be the belt if it has slipped off and worn through the cleaner. That happens a lot.

 

[jmurray01]

I thought that too, but on inspection the motor housing wasn't worn through and it has a brand new belt.

Could be starting to wear through though. I would put some oil on the motor housing to stop the sound if I knew that was what it was, but then it could contaminate the belt and cause slipping.

Can't win!

 

[vintagerepairer]

Jamie turn the cleaner over, remove the sole plate from the hose and the roller from the cleaner. Put them on the floor and take a photo for us to see of the upturned cleaner and the parts. We may be able to see more.

 

[jmurray01]

I will do that tomorrow, thank you Benny.

 

[paulc]

Congratulations

Jamie, firstly on getting such a great vacuum for a bargain price and secondly on the great clean up job!

One thing though, you will need to get a bumper for it. On the 500 series the bumper seals the gap between the hood and the sole plate. If no bumper you do loose suction.

I hope you manage to get the strange noise sorted. Does it look like someone has broken the seal on the motor at the fan end? If I remember correctly there is some kind of spring between the two fans, if someone has fiddled about with that then that may be causing the noise. In any case, hope it's an easy fix,

PaulC

 

[jmurray01]

I didn't know it sealed the gap Paul, thanks for pointing that out.

I have found a replacement bumper from the internet for £10 so when I'm a bit flush sometime I'll buy two. One for the 502 and one to replace the slightly worn out one on the 502S.

 

[vacu-finder]

I heard through the grapevine that the 502S had Motor problems.

 

[vintagerepairer]

They had no more problems than any other in the series before or after, as they had he exact same motor. For a while, some had a ceramic pulley fitted to the spindle which drives the belt, but that didn't make any difference to the performance or longevity of the motor.

 

[turbo500]

as they were lower priced than the 550 the 560-Electronic.

Well, the 550 and 560 were much later than the 502 and 502S. The 550 and 560 were the very last of the old style switch-on-handle 500's before they were replaced by the twin turbo style in 1986.

 

[jmurray01]

Here are the pictures you requested Benny. I didn't take one of the brush roll because I looked at it myself and didn't see anything different from the brush roll in my 502S (apart from the beater).

One thing I did notice (that you'll hopefully see in the pictures) is that there is a circle of rubber or something around the motor pulley...

Oh and when the brush roll is turned by hand with the belt fitted it feels slightly rough and makes a dull noise like a worn wheel bearing in a car, but apart from that it also makes a squeaking noise like rubber against rubber although I can see no such rubbing.

 

[jmurray01]

Picture 2

 

[jmurray01]

Picture 3

 

[jmurray01]

Picture 4

 

[vintagerepairer]

Turbo500, the 502S was on sale next to the 506. While the 502S was still in production, the 506 was changed to the 560 and the 550 went on sale too. So they were not much later. The 502S went on to be a Comet exclusive cleaner and finished production around the same time as the 550 and 560.

Jamie, the squeeking is the belt against the side of some plastic. The pully looks like it is coated in a layer of old rubber. The only thing I noticed was that in the first picture of the underside of the cleaner there looks to be a buldge in the right hand side where the roller bearing sits. This is very common when a roller wears out, as the bearing gets very hot and melts the hood of the cleaner.