A little recent project

VacuumLand – Vintage & Modern Vacuum Enthusiasts

Help Support VacuumLand:

singingrainbow

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 20, 2009
Messages
719
Location
Texas
I will go on record in saying that I like my dyson dc14's, not for their effectiveness, but because I enjoy using them and they tend to work well for me. However I have always found their ability to remove dirt from carpet to be a bit lethargic at best.

Now to offer a bit of history, I'm sure that many of our overseas friends are very familiar with the non-clutch versions of the dc07 and dc14, however over here we only got the non-clutch dc07's for a very short time and no non-clutch dc14's whatsoever. I did manage to track down a very sorry looking dc07 "carpet" model as they were called here, and when I got it back up and running I was very surprised to find how different it's performance was compared the standard clutch equipped dc07's and 14's. I figure it was down to the brush bar and I wished I could have used it as a daily driver, however there are still a few fragile parts which keep me from putting it to use. And considering how difficult to find they are anyway I wanted to preserve it for the collection.

Enter my first dc14, a few years ago the vacuum store for which I work we received an absolutely trashed dc14 animal. I believe it was used in a commercial setting as the bottom plate was worn to the point where the belt was rubbing against the floor, and the brush bar had no brushes left. Originally I thought it would be far too much work to restore (and I was right), but it grew on me seeing it everyday sitting sadly in the corner and decided to take on the challenge. Long story short after a long, expensive, but enjoyable restoration we had another derelict dc14 (I think from the same people) a later all floors model this time. This one was in a worse state than the last but it did have something I needed, a perfect (but dirty)cord where as my other ones cord had five inch long tears in it, not too safe if you ask me. So I took it too, switched the cords and threw it in storage.

Fast forward to about two or three months ago and my trusty dc14 animal has received fairly regular usage over the last couple years and has been quite reliable and nice to use despite it's yellowed, brittle plastic and all. Still one problem remained, it's udder inability to remove any clinging surface dirt from carpets the likes of which come from outside in droves by way of our dog. At the same time I was (and still am) weeding out my collection trying to get rid of the junk and of course that yellow junk pile came up once more.

The motor in the dc14 all floors was still good. And on top of that last year our shop became a dyson dealer and gained access to many more genuine dyson parts at better prices. And a fairly simple idea crossed my mind and got me exited.

Put together my own dc14 "carpet" I knew it would be an expense and a good bit of work, but out of all dysons I enjoy working on the dc14 the most (I will NEVER work on another dc17 again!)
There will be a lot of pictures on this thread.
Thanks for reading all this.
Scott

First, the before pictures...

singingrainbow++7-18-2013-21-05-7.jpg
 
The finished product. Despite the odd color scheme I am quite happy with it.
I cleaned the house with it for the first time today and it's grooming and cleaning performance was much better than my other dc14.

singingrainbow++7-18-2013-21-25-5.jpg
 
Back
Top