Ebay Heritage (took a licking, keeps on ticking)

[Anachronism]

My accomplice wanted to give some special friends a basic, reliable vac, and decided on a Kirby Heritage II or Legend. After watching thrift stores & internet listings with no luck, we took a shot at one on Ebay that was listed as "Runs Great". It arrived dumped into a pair of telescoped moving boxes with no packing. It still had a half full bag on OLDE dirt in it! When powered up, it vibrated. I unhooked the belt to eliminate the brush roll as a possible cause, and after less than a second the fan exploded. Since the motor did run, and the rest of it seemed salvageable, I ordered a new fan & proceeded to take it apart.

Kirbys are TOUGH! The screws were rusted from long storage in a damp location, the belt pulley would not unscrew, so I cut the remains of the fan hub off the shaft & used a pair of pipe wrenches to overcome the rust in the threads. Closer inspection revealed a shot-peening job on the inside of the fan housing that would suggest it sucked up a gravel road bed (the erosion on the remaining fins of the fan would indicate the same). A "pimple" on the exterior near the emptor connection turned out to be the point of impact from some hard object swallowed years earlier. The rear axle was bent, giving the wheels a 'reverse camber'. All in all, this one has had more use than our 510 & 'C' combined, and yet still could be resurrected for more years of service.

 

[tase]

Do you have any pictures from this? I love to see abused Kirby's turn into happy Kirby's.

It is amazing what some people do with $1000 vacuums. If I could find a post I made about my Sentria II, I would. In a little over a year, the front bearing was rust-locked, the tech drive was water damaged, the thing shined less than my Classic III when I got it, the brush roll bearings were rusted, and the bag had bursted.

 

[Anachronism]

I didn't bother taking pics as I went, as I did not expect the mess I found. Fortunately this one was not submerged, but was stored in a very inhospitable environment. Judging by what I saw, someone got their thousand dollar's worth of service from it before it was retired. I read some of your other posts, so it appears we are of a similar mindset regarding the preservation of good time proven equipment. We still use "His & Her's" model L Gravely garden tractors from 1952 & 1966 respectively, my shop is equipped with an 1890 vintage turret lathe, as well as many other machine tools dating from 1910 through the '50s.

BTW, I sent the seller a note suggesting his description of this one was flawed