Kenmore Model 116

[bvac6]

I picked this beauty up from my Tennessee haul and just now got around to working on it. It didnt run, the cord was shot as was the pigtail cord that ran from the bottom of the handle to the motor. So, lacking a suitable brown replacement, I cannibalized a black Kirby cord and wired it up. After a good bearing lube, a commutator polishing (you could see yourself in it, and a new belt it ran like a dream! Original bag to! The pic shows the embossed KENMORE across the front bumper, It looks good but it needs touched up with gold paint.

 

[kenkart]

116 =

116 is just the prefix of the model number, this designates the manufacturer, 116 = Birtman electric co before 1957, Whirlpool cooperation after 57, yours is probably late 40s or early 50s...Wonderful machines, you can tell a Birtman machine by the sound, they also made their own machine called Bee Vac and they built a machine for L.C. Mayer company, called the Lyceum.Birtman was taken over by Whirlpool, the reason for this was Sears wanted to get more manufacturing under 1 management, so they got Whirlpool , who already made their laundry equipment, to buy out Seeger Refrigeration Co, who made the Coldspot refrigerators, and Birtman, who made vacuums, mixers and blenders, somehow in the deal, the mixer/blender stuff got farmed out to Hamilton Beach, the hamilton Beach built stuff will have a 400 prefix.For a while, HB continued making mixers almost identical to the Birtman built ones, the only difference in the Whirlpool vacuums, is Whirlpool did not make their own motors, Birtman did, and all you have to do is listen to one and you can pick that startup sound out of a group of vacuums, its that distinctive.

 

[suckolux]

Hans, you mentioned that Bark sound of their motors on start up to me once and the moment you said it, I remembered that sound from when I was 9

 

[portable]

<span style="font-size: medium; font-family: verdana, geneva;">That model # might END in 711</span>

 

[mjm0424]

116 Kenmore

We had the exact same model when I was growing up. That machine cleans rings around any of that plastic crap they make today! My mom got it in 1947 as a mothers' day gift for my grandmother. Still have the machine.In 67 years the only things we replaced were the cord,started to crack. The bumper cracked with age,& fell off. I replaced it with some grey rubber weather stripping.I kept the original bumper.Around 1965 the handle fork cracked. My dad,& I went to a vacuum shop on east 79th st. in Chicago;& got a duplicate handle fork.It has the usual scuffs,& scratches for a cleaner that old.It's on the left,I think that was taken before the bumper fell off.