1991 Hoover Elite II Square Hood (MINT)

[vacuumchannel6]

If you guys know my YouTube channel you've probably seen this a few times this is my 1991 Hoover Elite II. This was my very first marketplace purchase in my life and it was $30 and it came with every single one of its attachments the only problem was it has a hairline crack on the motor cap which is in a big problem and it's still works all right. All I need to do is clean the chassis and get a new belt and bulb in it. I went ahead and put a cwp roller in it even though the original roller it had was fine. My goal is to make this in near refurbished condition and is also my main house vacuum. Since it has all of the attachments. Quite frankly I have way too many vacuums in my collection and need to downsize so I can't wait for the day when I get rid of alot of them. But of course I am keeping some gems. And this will be one of them. The rugs that we have are kind of hard to push normal vacuums on but this one does a great job and isn't too hard. And I'm also pretty sure this is an uncommon model. The story of this one was a hoarder had it the lady who was selling it inherited after she passed (rest in peace) and I guess she never really ended up using it only using it a few times telling by the condition and then when it got inherited it got used a little bit but the lady said that she didn't really have any use for it cuz she had another vacuum system I think it was a central but I can't remember.

 

[vacsofprosper]

One of my dream Elites!

That's a very nice Hoover Elite II you got there! That's one of the models I would love to get especially the one that uses the deluxe style side mounted tool holder. I believe this was the first Elite upright that uses the square shape hood that they use all of the Elites till they discontinued. According to the serial number, yours was actually made in April 1992. 0492 is the first four digits. Hopefully that helped.

 

[vacuumchannel6]

That did help thank you that month is my birthday so this vacuum is even more special to me

 

[vacsofprosper]

Vacuumchannel6

Your welcome. I'm really glad that helped. You know, I've been addicted to these old Elites. From 5 amps to 12 amps they're really great performers and better than the new Hoovers they make today. I now have 37 Elite models in my collection.

 

[vacuumchannel6]

Anytime I see an old Elite I snatch them up. And in my opinion like the model name implies they are the Elites of any Hoover. Any Elite model is interchangeable and you can still get quite a bit of parts for them online and they are the best "bag in the front" soft bag vacuums that I know of. I grew up with a Hoover convertible and Hoover is always been the greatest performing vacuums. In the house right now I have nothing but all Hoover I got a Fantom, Royal a couple of old Bissells in the closet and a Regina and Oreck hidden away but all the vacuums that are out that are used primarily are Hoover. By the way, 37 Elites is crazy! That's awesome.

 

[panasonicvac]

I'm not too crazy about Elites but that's one of my favorites cause of the color. And this is the first one I've seen with different logos on the outer bag, could be an older variant.

 

[vacsofprosper]

Hoover Elites are kinda the Kirby of Hoover uprights since they're direct air and various parts can be interchangeable.

 

[vacuumchannel6]

The Teardown/Clean up (I need a new motor cap pls help)

Ugh where do I even start. This evening after work what I thought would be a simple belt change and clean up turned into a fixing frenzy. When I got the new belts I decided to put the chassis, tool caddy, and plate in the dishwasher for a little bit making sure it's not on super hot and checking it every now and then to make sure nothing's warping. Everything turned out great. However the biggest bug that's making me itch right now is the motor cap. See, what I thought was just a simple hairline crack turned into something much more disastrous. For some reason the rest of the vacuum is in mint condition except for the motor cap its absolutely terrible and I swear I keep finding new cracks forming after I glued them with my Loctite Super Glue which I had to scrounge for and was already low on it to the point to where I had to use vice grips to squeeze the rest out. Well while the parts was washing I was looking at the motor and examining the cracks and I noticed that they were a lot worse than what I thought they were last time I looked at it and I was tinkering with the end of it where the motor shaft extrudes and all of a sudden a huge chunk fell off, now me being on a time crunch and having to get to bed early because I have work tomorrow even though it's night shift I want to get enough rest although for some reason I end up going to bed late anyway lol. I scrounged for my Loctite even though it was low i glued that chunk back on then applied it to the rest of the cracks and you can see where all of them are where I applied the glue. Now after all the parts got done washing in the dishwasher I hit them with some Polish and I greased the chassis, Height adjustment, motor mounts, even the release lever. By then the super glue was nearly dry but not completely dry especially around the end of the motor, everywhere else was ok, and since I can't wait all night and I need this thing put back together TONIGHT since I wasn't expecting to do all this and have this thing dismantled in my room along with my already dismantled Iona Dirt Raider I'm doing a refurb on and need a tool to fix the threads. I grabbed my electrical tape and wrapped it around it and then grab my razor and cut off the excess around the end. Put it back together and I wiped off the excess Grease and is fully functional but does need a new motor cap. Keep in mind I did end up buying a motor cap a long time ago for this but it was the wrong one but yet it was the right color. I guess it was for a newer one but still had the gray color this one has. If anybody can link me to a period correct motor cap in this color please link me or see if you could sell me one I would be happy to pay for a new motor cap that is correct. Otherwise the Teardown went good but could have gone better if it wasn't for that pesky Motor cap. And it's still fully functional and runs fine, just the end of the motor is held together by super glue and electrical tape and that's kinda ghetto lol. So if anyone can link me to a motor cap for this it'd be greatly appreciated! Anyway I'm going to Celebrate with some Taco Bell chicken quesadillas and Nacho Fries and be glad this thing is still functional.

 

[broomvac]

Very nice old school Elite! Ones like yours are uncommon (narrow slide top bag paired with side-mounted attachments).

I, too, am a fan of these Hoovers. One of my favorites in my collection (C1404) is below.

The grey motor housings were highly prone to cracking around the belt-side bearing holder. I’ve had countless Hoover Elites, and every time I came across one with the grey motor housing, I found cracks. The material becomes brittle from the heat in that spot. The screw holes also tend to split, too.

The permanent solution is to replace it with a black motor housing from a 7.x amp model. I did this to all of my Elite-platform Hoovers. Hoover improved the material and reinforced it with glass fiber, too. I presume they were forced to make this change after seeing how the old housings were cracking. If the old material was degrading under the heat of a 5.x amp motor, it wouldn’t stand a chance with the heat from a 7.x amp motor.

Parts on eBay are expensive. Here’s the trick: thrifting a whole parts machine locally is cheaper. It just takes patience. I know, it sounds brutal to buy a vac just to part it out, but making one good machine out of two broken/shabby machines is sometimes justifiable in my opinion. I’ve picked up hard bag models which were just too far gone (but had a good motor housing) so I could fix other otherwise excellent machines in need of motor housings.

 

[broomvac]

*C1412, not C1404

 

[amtraksebo1997]

Broomvac

Did that hose come with your C1412, or did you install it yourself?