Electrolux PN-4A

[human]

That Electrolux 1205 I found in my parents' attic is pushing the half-century mark and it's never had a power nozzle of its own; in fact, it had never even had one plugged into it until I got the thing home a few weeks ago. After installing a new handle, a week or two ago, I wasn't planning to spend any more money on that machine, but when I saw this 'Silverado' gray PN-4A looking for a home, I just couldn't help myself. It's in good shape mechanically and now that I've cleaned a untold years of dirt out of it, the thing's a great performer in its own right. The best part is that I got it for about the cost of a replacement brush roll. Fortnuately, the brush roll in it is in excellent condition—the wood cylinder doesn't even have any marks on it—and the nozzle passed the Persian rug test* with flying colors.

Aesthetically though, this little PN-4A needs some help. Despite having not been abused, the painted top shell is scratched all to hell, just like almost every painted PN-4 and PN-4A I've ever seen. I'm just thankful it's not a brown one from an Olympia because those show their scratches even worse. At least with this one, the gray paint is kinda sorta similar to the color of the metal beneath. But it begs the question—why even paint it all?

I freely admit that I am very much a fan of shiny aluminum. It's pretty, it goes with any color scheme, and scratches can easily be sanded out. If I had access to media blasting equipment, I think that gray paint would likely already be history. And it may yet become a project to do by hand.

*One of the toughest things to vacuum up is cat fur off of a Persian rug. If a vac or power nozzle can do that in one or two passes, it passes the test!

 

[human]

Just for fun, I decided to do a little three-way competition between my PN-1, PN-2 and this newly acquired PN-4A on a particularly cat hair-encrusted rug to see which of my three power nozzles would do the best job. Each nozzle got three passes over an equally nasty piece of of the same rug, while connected to my Super J.

First up was the PN-2 (older brush in 'used' position), since it was already hooked up to the Super J. It did a reasonably good job, leaving just a little bit of cat fur after its three passes.

Next was the PN-A. Interestingly, it wouldn't work with the Super J's white, two-piece wand that I had originally gotten with a PN-5. I had to switch to a 1205 wand to complete the test. I don't really understand why that happened. Results were similar to those of the PN-2. I also noticed a slight and momentary bearing squeal as I shut machine off. Not sure whether it was coming from the motor or the brush roll. When I had the thing apart the other day, I did notice the belt seemed sort of thin.

The final contestant was my PN-1 and it absolutely smoked the competition, doing in two passes what the others accomplished in three; however, it did seem to sort of rattle and bounce over the Persian rug, which is sitting on top of a simulated hardwood floor while the other two ran more smoothly. I'll attribute its performance and perhaps some of the rattle and bounce to its nearly brand new brush roll.

I don't think I really learned anything I didn't already know with this little exercise and I'm not at all surprised by the similarity in performance between the PN-2 and PN-4A as the latter seems to be just a mild update of the PN-2's design. except the power nozzles are staying with their present machines. My original 1205 is keeping its original PN-1; while my beautiful, shiny PN-2 is staying with the Super J.

That leaves PN-4A paired with the 1205 from my parents' attic. The more I use that canister/power nozzle combo, the more I like it. Yeah, it's not the 'right' power nozzle for a 1205 but who cares? it gets the job done and this particular 1205 has never performed better. I'm still considering stripping off the scarred up gray paint and polish it to look more like the PN-2. Painting it 1205 teal might also be interesting for a custom look, but that would eventually get scarred up too.

 

[pnluxconvlvr]

Great test and idea of teal repaint

My PN5 does the best job of fluffing the nap on my carpet. My PN1 and PN2 do a great job of removing dirt, but leave the nap rather flat. The rear wheel set up on the PN4 does a good job of letting the front of the nozzle raise up as it is pushed forward to get larger particles and aid in forward movement by reducing friction, but my PN5 rear wheel redesign seems to do a better job on my medium pile carpet. Repainting that PN4 to match the 1205 would look pretty awesome.