Hitachi CV50D

[turbo500]

Hi all,

At the request of Mike, I've started a thread about this beauty. I picked this up from a friend of mine. It had most certainly seen better days. It was filthy, the cord had been cut off and the bumper held on with parcel tape (PARCEL TAPE. ON PLASTIC. I ask you, what kind of fool does THAT!?). I had no idea if it worked or not but as I've been after one of these for years, I took a risk.

I remember seeing a few of these around as a kid, but one stands out in particular. My Mums friend, Michelle (who's daughter used to babysit for me), had one that she always kept in her walk in wardrobe. I can still picture it stood in their with the hose over the handle. She was one of few people who would always let me play with her vacuum as a kid. As you can imagine, I'm thrilled enough just to own one of these. Me and James S added a new cord too it and whadyaknow, she works! The bearings need some attention, but everything else works a treat.

The CV50D was Hitachi's first upright launched around 1980/1981. It includes a lot of features that were incredibly revolutionary for the time - clean air design, cord rewind, beater bar controls, detachable handle for storage. A lot of these now we expect as standards on vacuums, but this is where they began. Anybody who remembers these first time around may be able to supply some more info.

Anyway, here are a few snaps of her cleaned up. Video to follow once we've sorted out the bearings.

 

[turbo500]

The rear shot. The large button above the carry handle released the handle for storage. A long hose was available and full tool set the attached onto the end of the smaller hose

 

[turbo500]

Beater bar on/off switch and height adjustment

 

[turbo500]

Power switch and cord rewind button

 

[vintagerepairer]

For some reason, every single one of these cleaners which came in to my shop for repair had burnt out motors. I must have seen half a dozen over the years, so not that many really, but there would have been reasons for it, such as owners not bothering to get them mended. I don't think they were an unpopular machine though. The later Hitachi cleaners could be very problematic when it came to the roller brushes, which were very expensive to repair. They also had an internal duct from cleaning head to bag, which was moulded with lots of twists and bends. Because of this I came to own a good deal scrap Hitachi cleaners which had working motors.

I do not know why the CV-50 cleaners I attended to had burnt out motors more than any other make or model. As I have mentioned on another message, if one was to tell a customer their cleaner was burnt out, it automatically sent home the idea that the cleaner was scrap, and this would be long before costs were mentioned. I can think of at least three occasions where I removed a working motor from a later model of Hitachi cleaner and put it into a customers CV-50. I did not tell them I had done this, and would charge only the standard labour & service fee, which included a new belt and bag as standard, with filters as applicable, all of this being clearly written on the wall of the shop and confirmed with the customer by telephone first.

I do not know why the CV-50 was not made into a cleaner with on board tools, as it was only one step away from being such, what with the external hose being fashioned in the manner it was.

 

[vintagerepairer]

In case you have not noticed, the Hitachi in the pictures here still has the factory fitted plastic film on the metal front trim plate. If this is removed, the plate will be slightly less well protected, but it will look a good deal smarter. There may also be film on the two metal trim sections of the on &off and cordwinder buttons.

 

[turbo500]

Here's a quick video

 

[vintagerepairer]

Excellent video and your cleaner sounds perfect. Well done. I watched some of your other videos. Equally excellent, though I would point out to you that your Philips upright cleaner did appear under the name Aqua Vac, and later still Goblin (well the main body of the machine did, the cleaning head was completely different) it was no a 3-in-one cleaner. It was just a straightforward dry vacuum cleaner, but had rotating circular scrubbing brushes on the head and a can of foam shampoo on the main unit, and had the option of spraying the carpet with foam and then scrubbing it into the carpet. Though I cannot recall exactly how, I am sure the user was required to shut the suction off from the front cleaning head for this to take place. I have a memory that this was achieved by opening the hole on the back where the accessory hose plugged into.

Shampooing was a big thing in the 1970s and early 1980's, with several varietys of standalone electric and none-electric shampoo machines being on sale. Bissell was one of the main players, and then of course we had the Hoover shampoo-polisher for many, many decades. Hotpoint also had a dry-cleaning system on its upright range, which required the user to sprinkle powder across the carpet and then select the dry-cleaning function on the vacuum cleaner to shut the suction off. In this instance, the Hotpoint was a dirty air cleaner and turning the dial did literally shut the suction off altogether as it effectively blocked the ducting, which would cause no damage to this sort of motor, but did make it nosier as it was running faster. It is no wonder that Vax 3-in-1 cleaners sold so very well when they first went on sale, as they did what the general public was wanting their vacuum cleaner to do.

One thing I will also say about your Philips is that there was no automatic provision to raise the cleaning head off the floor when using the tools. The user was supposed to turn the height adjuster, but probably never did.

 

[turbo500]

Hi Benny,

I believe this was the first appearance of this machine in 1985

 

[turbo500]

and a slightly later version in brown

 

[jmurray01]

I thought I'd already replied to this, but obviously it didn't send.

I'll say it again:

That film Benny mentioned, if removed would make that panel look so much better!

I love it when I get an old appliance which still has the film covering it in places, as when removed the plastic underneath is usually in new condition!

 

[vintagerepairer]

As always, great pictures. I would be prepared to stick my neck on the line and say that these Multi shampoo cleaners were out a on sale a bit before 1985, under the Aqua Vac brand, though I fully appreciate that the dates of your pictures indicate that the brown cleaner was later, as it ran alongside the Goblin in white.

The brown one is the version I've seen the most of. Around 1985 Goblin was bought up by a company called Shop Vac, who I think is of American origin and were the ones who were behind the Aqua Vac cleaners which originally went on sale in the UK. They also made wet & dry cleaners for other brands too, like Hoover. Now you will see in those pictures that even though the canister wet & dry machines are being sold as Goblin, they are still the original brown & gold, with original brown Aqua Vac tools. This colour scheme is consistent with that of the upright Multi cleaner and after the acquisition of Goblin, the cleaners were produced in black & gold, with black Goblin tools. It was around then or shortly after that the brown Multi cleaner became discontinued, though I have a notion it was not exactly a popular cleaner to start with. As well as using it with a plastic shampoo container, there was also an option of fitting a can of Aqua Vac aerosol foam to the cleaner.

Also around this time, the same machine as you Philips was on sale in brown & beige, under the Kenwood name. There were two models, a standard and an electronic.

 

[turbo500]

At long last, the brochure.

 

[chestermikeuk]

Hitachi CV50D

Many thanks Chris, I first came across these models in 1982 working for Agri-Electrics, they where very popular and to think over the Hoovers and Electrolux of the time this one stood out for having a very robust casing, cord rewind, metal detachable handle and brush bar on / off with height adjustment. The bag carrier was a slight faff to get used to but great performance, now all I have to do is fix the model you gave me with the new motor, Cheers,