Here’s an oddball: Royal “Procision Lite”

[broomvac]

I forgot that Royal ever made these until I came across this one. I have been cleaning it up over the past couple of days. I am very pleased by its condition. My example made in 2002 is “low miles.”

This is a Royal Procision Lite RY5200, part of their blue line Dirt Devils tweaked and relabeled for the Royal brand. It is a Dirt Devil Featherlite with a (very) soft bag, steel upper handle, steel upper cord hook, and steel sole plate. Additionally, it features a stretch hose with an “X” on the end to discourage you from picking up items which might damage the fan. I have a feeling that the cord is longer than that on the Featherlite, and the fan may also be larger.

I replaced both 608 motor bearings and cleaned all other parts. I still need to polish and ceramic seal the nozzle hood, but for now here are some pictures of it.

Hope you all enjoy. Let me know if you have any questions about it.

 

[broomvac]

And now after a polish and ceramic sealant for the hood:

 

[panasonicvac]

I've seen these without the on-board hose and attachments. Both in blue and orange (commercial). Very nice find! I would glady take one over a Dirt Devil Featherlite because of the soft bag, adds more filtration and looks cooler too.

 

[repairman]

WOW!

I had no idea these existed. Pretty cool concept. I assume these didn't survive well?

 

[huskyvacs]

I think this was the time Royal was rebadging Hoovers and Dirt Devils to sell as "commercial uprights" and since all they were were just recolors and a badge swap, they didn't hold up to commercial use and sullied the Royal name for a lot of people. I have a Hoover Windtunnel vac that's been branded a Royal Commercial upright and it's literally just got cheap little stickers put over the Hoover logos.

 

[kirbylux77]

Huskyvacs - I agree, it was really stupid of TTI to rebadge Hoover's and Dirt Devils as Royal models, and it likely harmed Royal's reputation in consumers eyes. Especially rebadging the Featherlite, when it was a model in later years known for using cheap aluminum wiring in the motor field coils and catching fire easily.

Alex - Do you REALLY THINK that outer bag would improve filtration much? I highly doubt it would do much. It would be far better to just use a HEPA Cloth bag in it than rely on the outer bag to improve filtration. I used to modify a Kenmore 5068 HEPA Cloth bag collar to fit in my Featherlite, it worked nicely. And I would also think the Royal B HEPA Cloth bags, or the imitations that Perfect makes for their Sanitaire clones, would fit and work just as well in the Featherlite.

 

[panasonicvac]

Oh yes

Again I've seen these before. I can tell the outer bag is made out of the same material as the Dirt Devil 103 style hand vacs for example. Even without a paper bag on inside, they're honestly not that bad from my experience. I don't think they're the best ever but it's definitely better than some of the other outer bags that I've also seen.

 

[broomvac]

Sorry to be so late to reply to you all, and thank you! I was happy to be able to share this unusual cleaner.

@panasonicvac — I made the same observation. This RY5200’s bag is made from the same material as the Dirt Devil 103 shake out bags. Later models of this had what looks like “piping” around the bag (MRY5200 and MRY5000, see below) and perhaps different bag material. Unsure. I would not be surprised if they added piping to give the bag jacket more structure. Personally, I prefer the look of the one on my RY5200.

I digress. This outer bag would filter out whatever particles the shake out on a 103 could catch. I agree that this does likely improve the filtration versus having a hard case.

broomvac