human
Well-known member
I came to realize that last week, I was starting to hijack the thread linked below (replies 14 and 15). Instead of continuing down that path, I decided it would be better to finish off the story here, in its own thread:
As the subject line suggests, I now have a Eureka Roto-Matic power head for my Eureka Ironsides, model 1746, canister vacuum cleaner, which I bought at thrift store almost a decade ago as something of a replacement for a 1977 Eureka Princess that my ex-wife had made me get rid of around 2003. Her daughter vacuumed up dry cat food with it and managed to get a piece lodged in the motor, where it made a terrible racket. When I couldn't fix it in a couple of minutes, the soon-to-be-ex insisted it had to go, and for better or worse, I complied, even though it never sat right with me.
A few months later, when we split up, not specifically over that vacuum cleaner, I was left without one, and ended up getting an Electrolux 1205 with a PN1 and a Canadian style telescoping wand from a thrift store. To a rational mind, that should have been a more than reasonable replacement. Unfortunately, I was a little tougher to convince.
After I found the Eureka at Goodwill for $10, I mated it up to an Electrolux 1205 wand with a pigtail at the top end, and used it with one of several Electrolux power nozzles, but I never really liked that setup, not because it didn't work well, but because it wasn't really what I'd had. For years, I kept an eye out at thrift shops and would occasionally look on eBay, but never found anything, that is, until last week, when I spotted this Eureka Roto-Matic model 1238 power head for a reasonable price, and decided that was as good as it was likely to get, so I bought it, even though I'm pretty sure it's not what would have come with it new. For my purposes, it's close enough.
The power head arrived today and generally met my expectations, although it was supposed to include a wand, which was not present in the box. I've got a message in to the seller about that, and hopefully they'll either be able to send it or give a partial refund. I've already got some generic wands on my eBay watch list, but I'm going to wait until I hear from the seller before ordering them. At this point, I'm not inclined to send the power head back for a refund. I plugged it in to the vacuum's hose and was very pleased with the way it runs.
The brown decal on the top of the white plastic cover doesn't exactly match the vacuum's 'cinnamon' paint job, but they don't exactly fight, either. I knew that going in and can live with it.
One thing that I'm going to have to fix, which I damaged myself, is the lock button on the hose. I bent it out of the way to be able to use the Electrolux wand, but now its loose and useless. I see two possible fixes for this: one is to drill out the existing rivet, bend the button back into shape and pop rivet it into place. I've had mixed luck with pop rivets, but I suppose it's worth a try. The second idea is I have some replacement lock buttons for a Rainbow on my eBay watch list. They're made from a semi-circular piece of spring steel, and it appears it would just slide into place and stay put with spring tension.
So, while I have no doubt I can turn this combo into a reasonable facsimile of what I once had, it begs the question of whether it will be sufficiently satisfying on an emotional level to finally allow me to let go of this lingering and irrational resentment toward my ex-wife, whom I have neither seen nor spoken with in two decades, and have no intention of ever seeing or speaking with again. The rational side of me knows I'm only hurting myself by hanging onto and nurturing this resentment, and if it takes a second-hand vacuum cleaner to be able to free myself from that, then so be it. Seeing the two pieces together, I'm hopeful it will.
https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?46123_17
As the subject line suggests, I now have a Eureka Roto-Matic power head for my Eureka Ironsides, model 1746, canister vacuum cleaner, which I bought at thrift store almost a decade ago as something of a replacement for a 1977 Eureka Princess that my ex-wife had made me get rid of around 2003. Her daughter vacuumed up dry cat food with it and managed to get a piece lodged in the motor, where it made a terrible racket. When I couldn't fix it in a couple of minutes, the soon-to-be-ex insisted it had to go, and for better or worse, I complied, even though it never sat right with me.
A few months later, when we split up, not specifically over that vacuum cleaner, I was left without one, and ended up getting an Electrolux 1205 with a PN1 and a Canadian style telescoping wand from a thrift store. To a rational mind, that should have been a more than reasonable replacement. Unfortunately, I was a little tougher to convince.
After I found the Eureka at Goodwill for $10, I mated it up to an Electrolux 1205 wand with a pigtail at the top end, and used it with one of several Electrolux power nozzles, but I never really liked that setup, not because it didn't work well, but because it wasn't really what I'd had. For years, I kept an eye out at thrift shops and would occasionally look on eBay, but never found anything, that is, until last week, when I spotted this Eureka Roto-Matic model 1238 power head for a reasonable price, and decided that was as good as it was likely to get, so I bought it, even though I'm pretty sure it's not what would have come with it new. For my purposes, it's close enough.
The power head arrived today and generally met my expectations, although it was supposed to include a wand, which was not present in the box. I've got a message in to the seller about that, and hopefully they'll either be able to send it or give a partial refund. I've already got some generic wands on my eBay watch list, but I'm going to wait until I hear from the seller before ordering them. At this point, I'm not inclined to send the power head back for a refund. I plugged it in to the vacuum's hose and was very pleased with the way it runs.
The brown decal on the top of the white plastic cover doesn't exactly match the vacuum's 'cinnamon' paint job, but they don't exactly fight, either. I knew that going in and can live with it.
One thing that I'm going to have to fix, which I damaged myself, is the lock button on the hose. I bent it out of the way to be able to use the Electrolux wand, but now its loose and useless. I see two possible fixes for this: one is to drill out the existing rivet, bend the button back into shape and pop rivet it into place. I've had mixed luck with pop rivets, but I suppose it's worth a try. The second idea is I have some replacement lock buttons for a Rainbow on my eBay watch list. They're made from a semi-circular piece of spring steel, and it appears it would just slide into place and stay put with spring tension.
So, while I have no doubt I can turn this combo into a reasonable facsimile of what I once had, it begs the question of whether it will be sufficiently satisfying on an emotional level to finally allow me to let go of this lingering and irrational resentment toward my ex-wife, whom I have neither seen nor spoken with in two decades, and have no intention of ever seeing or speaking with again. The rational side of me knows I'm only hurting myself by hanging onto and nurturing this resentment, and if it takes a second-hand vacuum cleaner to be able to free myself from that, then so be it. Seeing the two pieces together, I'm hopeful it will.
https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?46123_17
