Hoover junior U1012

[alexhoovers94]

Here is one of my juniors, model U1012, this model ran from the mid to late 70's, it is the same style as the junior 1346, it just has a different bag fill style is all. I got this one off eBay last week, the seller said it was in excellent condition and it did look to be from the photos, however when it arrived there was more to be said!
Here is some before pictures.

Sorry about the mess in the background in the first picture.

 

[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

Look at this disgrace under the bottom cover!!

 

[portable]

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva; font-size: medium;">OMG, what a mess. But it looks to be pretty superficial. Most will get sucked away with...another HOOVER!!!</span>

 

[alexhoovers94]

So much for the great condition bag, yeah maybe from the out

 

[alexhoovers94]

well I used the sebo x4 to clean it all out, but most people from the uk would consider it a "Hoover" lol

 

[alexhoovers94]

Now the after pictures!!


The bag was washed carefully to be sure the HOOVER logo was not lost.

 

[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

I really love this style fill tube alot, it is a strange looking thing though isn't it.

 

[alexhoovers94]

HOOVER, lol.

 

[alexhoovers94]

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[alexhoovers94]

That is much better, had all the components out and had to wash the mane body in the bath to get it clean, it was that filthy inside.

 

[alexhoovers94]

This one dates from Novemeber 1976.

 

[vintagerepairer]

What an amazing example. These must have been the worst quality of all the Juniors ever made as they had several weak spots, although by today's standards would be considered solid and with a long life span. As can be seen in your photos, the hoods were very prone to splitting and it is a miracle to find one with one good flex hood, never mind two.

 

[alexhoovers94]

This is the Junior I have wanted for a long time, I just love the colours and the longer bag, and to me that mustard colour looks so seventies! I have heard lots of people say the colour of this one is disgusting but I think it look really nice.
I am glad I grabbed this one, in, now good condition, I must say though if you didn't notice it before, there is a small crack next to the bellow at the right side of the base, it has now been glued with some super strong super glue so with hope, is hardly noticeable.

The handle release also didn't work when I got it so I got my dad to grind sharper points into the handle release catch thing because it had worn and smoothed down over time, it does work semi properly now, it is a little temperamental at times but at least it works well enough to hold it in the upright and 3/4 back position.

If you notice on the before pictures the cord is shorter, where as on the after pictures it is longer, that is because I had to replace the cord the cord didn't have a mark on it apart from the big gash in it where it had been wrapped too tight around the top cord hook exposing the live and neutral wires which was not safe and made the machine cut out so I replaced it with a match to the original one, only this one is 10m and not 6m like the original one. God knows what Hoover was thinking putting 6m cords on there vacuum cleaners, that is just stupidly short, I am forever unplugging and re plugging!

Anyway overall the only thing replaced on this is the belt, bag and cord.

 

[twocvbloke]

Looks like it's cleaned up well though, can't say I like the colour myself, but that's just me, I may not like Hoovers, but I do like the Juniors...

Yeah, Hoover didn't get the memo that dirt goes into the bag, not the motor, when making these, all the Juniors I've had came with dirt around and inside the motor like that. That said, I hope you opened up the motor itself to clean out the packed fluff, you wouldn't want it overheating and topping itself... :S

I found that up & over guttering they used for a filltube to be rather a nuisance when I had the Junior U1104, as it takes up 2/3rds of the cloth bag's space, leaving little room for the paper bags to work, I know it was an attempt at making changing bags less messy, but, it just seemed too "clunky" for me... :&#92

And it's funny, the only Junior I haven't replaced the power cable on is the oldest I have, the 1334, with it's not-original rubber cable with the old-style Red & Black wires, before Brown & Blue were standard, it's in perfect shape, no bad bits anywhere, so, I left it on...

 

[vintagerepairer]

When you say the cord was wrapped too tightly, I would beg to differ, only because the cord on so many Hoover cleaners which had this plastic top hook would snap in the same place as your has. Why? Well, if you look carefully at the first piece of flex which passes over the hook, you will see that it slides into a small gap on either side of the hook and this causes the flex to stretch if the flex is pulled, even slightly so, which naturally it is when winding the flex down. The bottom hook is unlikely to create such damage because the user is not going to put quite the same amount of pressure on it as the flex is passed through it and upwards. The remaining turns of flex sit on top of the ones before it, and this makes for an uneven and softer surface. As a result, the flex does not usually snap.

As always, if one factors in room temperature into the equation, this can speed up the time it takes for the flexes to snap. As a good deal of people keep their cleaners in cool or even cold spaces, it is a very real problem. I've seen it myself in the shop, when it was very cold on a winters morning and I unwound the flex of a cleaner and found it to be more like cable than flex, given the stiffness of it. Unwinding and pulling around a cold flex on a regular basis is going to cause issues.

As for the colour of this U1012, I actually don't like or dislike it. I must admit to preferring the cream, brown, & orange scheme of the U1016 Dirtsearcher. I also liked the beige & dark brown colour of the very last U1012.

 

[vintagerepairer]

twocvbloke, I for one do very much take your point about the amount of fluff which got into the Junior motor via the cooling fan, and I also take your point about it being a possible fire hazard. However, in reality I have never in all my years seen any fluff inside one which looked even remotely scorched. So, whilst you and I can think about the potential dangers, the reality has proven to be very different. Certainly if the problem had been widespread it would have come to light many years ago, bearing in mind this style of motor was used from 1959 right up to the later part of the 1980's.

This is in direct contrast to a number of Hoover cleaners where the suppressor blew up, which usually didn't cause any damage, but I know of the odd one or two cases where it burnt a carpet beneath the cleaner.

 

[twocvbloke]

Yeah, the U1104 had it's suppressor blow when I had it, it was down to the brand used (Rifa), which are notorious for detonating and gassing off and all that no matter what the application they're used in, the smell was terrible, I thought I'd picked up a rotten egg when the thing blew... :S

Luckily it wasn't a full-on detonation, but, it certainly did blow with some force, as you can see here:

 

[vintagerepairer]

Well I was thinking more of the older metal barrel type suppressors, but yes, I've seen that happen too, sometimes on Electrolux cleaners.

 

[twocvbloke]

I don't often see many older barrel types, there was one in the Senior I had, but someone seemed to think it was superfluous to the design and cut the wires to it, but didn't remove it, which was odd...

 

[vintagerepairer]

It was something which all Hoover cleaners had from the 1960's or so, into the late 1970s. Cylinder and uprights. Earliest Hoover suppressors were plastic and had the wires moulded into them. Then the larger metal barrel types took over.

 

[twocvbloke]

The only plastic-bodied wires-moulded-in suppressors I've seen the most are the ones in 240v Kirbys, though never ad any problems with those, other than remembering where they were connected...

 

[alexhoovers94]

Yepp twocvbloke, had the motor apart completely and cleaned it, checked the carbon brushes and bearings which are fine. I did have to swap the carbon brushes around, because they must of got taken out and put back in (prior to me owning it) the wrong way which was making a ticking sound against the commutator, so now the brushes are seated against the commutator in the correct way they had worn down previously. But yeah the motor is all dust and fluff free.

 

[jmurray01]

Looks great! I totally agree with the flexes being stupidly short!

Whenever I use my Ranger U4014 I'm always tugging on the cord to get the cleaner to the far side of the rooms.

There will come a day when I have to replace the flex no doubt and when that day comes, the new flex will be a lot longer than the old one!

The strange thing is that the hooks could actually hold a few more metres of wire on the Senior range, so why didn't HOOVER make use of that ?

It wasn't like they were made in a time of extreme material shortages and the price when new (£81 for the U4014) certainly didn't warrant cut backs in manufacture.

 

[twocvbloke]

Less copper cable = More profits...

I got an apparently genuine Hoover replacement cable for my rebuilt Junior, and even that was longer than what had been fitted, presumably aftermarket, but someone had obviously driven over it with the vac and stripped a lot of the insulation off revealing bare copper on both side, and they just taped over it, hence the need to replace it as it was just too dangerous, and they went over the middle of the cable so it was not possible to trim it to get rid of the bad bits, so I managed to accidentally find a genuine Hoover replacement (don't actually know if it was meant for a Junior specifically though) on ebay, bought it and threw it on there...

I do think that's the reason why many older Hoover models of that era have replacement cables, because they were too short even for us brits and our shoebox houses, either replaced by a vac shop guy or by mr. DIY and his insulation tape to make them a little easier to work with, without having to swap sockets every stroke...