gmerkt
New member
On another thread (#13284, below) we were discussing the broken handle release pedal. This plastic part has a built-in spring to maintain tension. When this tab-like spring breaks off, the nozzle will just flop around on the handle and won't lock in when you want it to.
When you were a kid and wanted to cut off a length of wire and didn't have any wire cutters, what did you do? Please don't say, "I went and got my mom's favorite Wiss sewing shears and cut it." Some of us might've done that and gotten a good paddling as a result. The correct answer is, we bent the wire back and forth enough times to wear it in two. Well, that's what happens to the so-called spring on this pedal. It's only a thin but springy extension on the molded plastic pedal and eventually it has just reached the end of its wiggle time and breaks off.
One of the Kenmore (Panasonic-made) Progressive direct drive/beltless uprights that I've gotten recently had the broken handle release pedal. I looked it up online at the Kenmore repair parts site and the part was $9.-something, might as well say $10. Plus shipping of course, which just for this single part was around $8.00.
It's a funny thing, but if you order a half dozen parts from Kenmore at the same time, the shipping isn't much more than for one single part and they seem to mail each item separately. I've wondered if they might be taking it in the shorts doing that, but maybe they get huge shipper discounts that I can't get.
Anyway, I'm a tinkerer by nature and have a reputation for pretty good Rube Goldberg solutions. I decided that rather than send Sears $18 for the plastic pedal, I would think about a repair solution for the broken part.
Plastic isn't quite as non-repairable as you might think. More often than I'd like, I find myself repairing plastic stuff. I use screws, pins, epoxy liquid, epoxy putty, and anything else that I think might work. In the case of this pedal, I came up with a solution that involved a short length of clock spring, two each screws, nuts and lock washers, and some epoxy putty.
Some of our younger readers might say, "What is clock spring?" Well, my dears, a few decades ago if you had a clock, it might commonly be a wind-up Westclox or similar, that was powered by a spiral spring made out of flexible, flat, thin but rather brittle steel.
The pictures below tell the story. The first picture is of an unbroken, intact handle release pedal as viewed from below. The spring tab is on the left, rubbing against a flat on the nozzle. Tension on the spring tab holds the pedal up and locks the handle in place.
When you were a kid and wanted to cut off a length of wire and didn't have any wire cutters, what did you do? Please don't say, "I went and got my mom's favorite Wiss sewing shears and cut it." Some of us might've done that and gotten a good paddling as a result. The correct answer is, we bent the wire back and forth enough times to wear it in two. Well, that's what happens to the so-called spring on this pedal. It's only a thin but springy extension on the molded plastic pedal and eventually it has just reached the end of its wiggle time and breaks off.
One of the Kenmore (Panasonic-made) Progressive direct drive/beltless uprights that I've gotten recently had the broken handle release pedal. I looked it up online at the Kenmore repair parts site and the part was $9.-something, might as well say $10. Plus shipping of course, which just for this single part was around $8.00.
It's a funny thing, but if you order a half dozen parts from Kenmore at the same time, the shipping isn't much more than for one single part and they seem to mail each item separately. I've wondered if they might be taking it in the shorts doing that, but maybe they get huge shipper discounts that I can't get.
Anyway, I'm a tinkerer by nature and have a reputation for pretty good Rube Goldberg solutions. I decided that rather than send Sears $18 for the plastic pedal, I would think about a repair solution for the broken part.
Plastic isn't quite as non-repairable as you might think. More often than I'd like, I find myself repairing plastic stuff. I use screws, pins, epoxy liquid, epoxy putty, and anything else that I think might work. In the case of this pedal, I came up with a solution that involved a short length of clock spring, two each screws, nuts and lock washers, and some epoxy putty.
Some of our younger readers might say, "What is clock spring?" Well, my dears, a few decades ago if you had a clock, it might commonly be a wind-up Westclox or similar, that was powered by a spiral spring made out of flexible, flat, thin but rather brittle steel.
The pictures below tell the story. The first picture is of an unbroken, intact handle release pedal as viewed from below. The spring tab is on the left, rubbing against a flat on the nozzle. Tension on the spring tab holds the pedal up and locks the handle in place.
