Constellation 862. Help needed!

[markjcook]

Hi everyone, I'm new to this forum and hope to find some help and advice about restoring my constellation. It was my M&Ds first Hoover when they were married on Jan 1st 1960 and has been my vacuum for the last 25 or more years. I'm a wee bit sentimental about it, I can't afford to send it to a restoration specialist so I'm going to attempt to restore it myself. A couple of months ago the motor just went poof and stopped when I turned it on and left me a lovely soot ring on the carpet! I'm not that mechanically minded and have never tried to restore anything before. Any help and answers to my questions would really be appreciated.
To start with as you can see from the pics the casing needs repainting, do I need to get in shot / sand blasted before painting and what's the difference between 'powder coating' and painting? Also, can you match the original colour perfectly these days or does one have to just go 'as close as possible' to the original colour?
I notice on a few restoration narratives on here that you talk of 'drilling out the rivets' in some places, how do you put it back together if you've drilled holes in it?
And finally for the moment, will I need to source a new motor or can I get this one restored or repaired by someone?
Many thanks in advance to anyone that can give me some help.
I'm in Southampton UK, if anyone knows of local companies that can do motor repairs, painting etc that would be helpful too.

 

[jimjimmunster]

Well This is my Best Answer.

Well, about the rivets. If you drill out the rivets you will need a pop rivet gun. You can usually pick those up at garage sales for a few bucks. I think your motor pooped because it looks like it hasn't been serviced or cleaned since I don't know when, but a long time ago. You probably wont be able to match the colors exactly due to colors never matching when painted in separate times, so I would suggest using a wire wheel and sanding it thoroughly. Make sure you prime the metal before you paint it aswell. I would guess the top is cream and white and the base is salmon and pink. For a motor, I would suggest looking on eBay or going to garage sales and finding a junker that still runs. And if you get a new motor, commonly clean it and make sure the vac has bags in it, or it could short out, or breath in to much dust and poop. If you paint it I suggest don't brush it, or spray paint it. Put some good metal paint in a paint sprayer and paint it in the back yard.

 

[kenkart]

Tons of those motors

In the US but they are NOT 220 volt!