Kirby Heritage II Legend handle leaning forward

[superocd]

The only defect that my recently restored Kirby Heritage II Legend has is that the handle assembly is leaning forward pretty significantly. I think it has something to do with the spring inside of the motor shell but not entirely sure. Is there any way to fix this besides buying a $60 tool, which costs about the same as what I paid for this vac (and a new fan, brushroll and carbon brushes to go with it)?

Also, the bag droops downward from its holder. It seems pretty typical with the Heritage series machines based on what I've seen beforehand but I wonder if it's possible for the bag to stay fully upright. I'm assuming the bag stood upright when they were taken out of the box and assembled for the first time. Any ideas?

 

[kirbyclassiciii]

Superocd

My 1984 Kirby Heritage II also has a defective handle fork stop assembly, in the form of a broken handle spring yoke.

~Ben

 

[broomvac]

If the “ledge” on the housing itself is broken/damaged, there is little which can be done beyond replacing the damaged shell. I believe that this problem is more common with the Sanitronics, however. I doubt this is your problem, because this part was reinforced on the later models.

With the Heritage machines, more commonly the root cause is the handle itself. Kirby never used bearings of any kind between the handle fork itself and its retaining pin. As a result, the pin (which I believe is steel) rides directly on the aluminum handle fork and, over time, ovals out the holes in the aluminum fork. This causes the handle to lean.

The solution? Well, I suppose you could try a new or low-mileage handle fork, but that isn’t free. What is free is bending back the “front” portion of the pivoting support bracket attached to the motor housing. If I’m remembering correctly, it is on the “driver’s” side of your Kirby. This procedure is what I have done in the past to take up the slack on the handles of some of the more well-used units I have run across, and it worked like a charm. No more handle lean. You just have to be careful with the pliers; there’s the potential to pinch the bracken enough that you can’t get the handle back in.

Hope this helps. Good luck with the resto!

 

[broomvac]

I should add: lubricating the handle pin and fork holes can slow down the wear from here on out. This wasn’t really done when the vacuum was new because the handle was intended to be removed and (set on the floor?) without making a mess.

Kirby should have put some sort of sintered bearing at this wear point. They are much harder than the soft aluminum.

As for the bag topper droop: I think they all did that even out of the box.

 

[lesinutah]

Spring

I know sanitronic models on the button for latch tilt has a screw. I'm thinking the spring needs rotated and loosen screw line it up and screw it down. I doubt the spring is bad. I'd check the screw and align spring up. This would fix it or just by looking you know what the problem is.
Les

 

[rivstg1]

superocd

I believe the handle assembly is supposed to lean forward a bit, I"m on vacation so I can't check mine now but will when I return home to verify.

with regards to the bag 'tilt' for Heritage and Legends, my kirby vac tech showed me that 'droop' of it is caused by the "J" shaped hook the bag top has to lactch into the handle, reshape it and the bag straightens out.

 

[rivstg1]

superocd

I believe the handle assembly is supposed to lean forward a bit, I"m on vacation so I can't check mine now but will when I return home to verify.

with regards to the bag 'tilt' for Heritage and Legends, my kirby vac tech showed me that 'droop' of it is caused by the "J" shaped hook the bag top has to lactch into the handle, reshape it and the bag straightens out.

 

[craig_1982]

Generally if the handle tension assembly is broken on powering up the Kirby the handle tends to fling backwards as there's no spring tension, If this happens check the locking slot of the handle assembly has not broken off (blue arrow on photo) it could also be that the spring itself inside has snapped, but If this doesn't happen and you have tension I would check the handle stop on the outside of motor casting to see if it has broken as sometimes these do fail (see red arrow on photo) this will generally cause the handle to lean further forward than normal and it's a common fault with these Kirby's. It could be that the two handle lugs (yellow arrows on photo) have opened up allowing for extra movement and they might just need bending closer together.
Regarding your bag drooping down this is common and generally a simple fix, get a large screw driver in between the bag holder lug/clip and open it up a bit wider, If some force has been pressed down on the top bag holder it bends the lug/clip together creating a looser fastening which makes the top bag holder droop down.

 

[broomvac]

Mild handle lean forward is acceptable, but the handles on these units were very close to vertical when they were new. See the Legend II in the attached thread.

@craig_1982 Nice graphic. The fix I recommended above involved pinching the lugs you have pointed to with the yellow arrows. It’s an especially effective repair if you give more attention to the one to the front of the Kirby. This will take up the slack from a worn handle fork.

https://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?11189

 

[kirbyclassiciii]

A tutorial from Hank about how to repair your Kirby handle fork.

~Ben

 

[superocd]

Thanks for all your help!

I'm going to try the plier trick first and bend the slot a little to see if that works. As far as the handle stop goes, it doesn't appear broken, chipped off or worn. The holes on the handle fork didn't seem to be ovaled out, at least when I rebuilt this vac a few months ago.