Black and Decker Valet Restoration...
Dave,
I have the camera in the coat pocket ready to go to work tomorrow. I literally soaked the wands most of the day in a bath of Coke-Cola, and using a very fine steel wool, wa able to remove 98% of the rust on the wands. What is left, is wither too deep to remove properly, or will have to be removed by a buffing machine, of which I do not have one.
The motors were cleaned, and lubricated with zoom oil, and both run fine now, as they were good at first, but a little dry, and just covered in schmutz. When I dissassembled the canister portion, I found a few more (abandoned) honeycombs, so thankfully I wasn't stung stupid by a bees nest. Of course it was still just a bit cold for those things to be alive quite yet.
I had a hose that works perfectly, the one that was with it I belive was the original one, but I have no outer hose cords that I could use, nor straps to hold it on. Looking at the General Electric one that preceded it, I can't imagine that anyone (would not) want to have a regular electric hose anyway.
The Powernozzle is strangely VERY FilterQueen'esque; similar but not fully like a model 48 powerhead. The belt was dryrotted into several billion little rubber chunks that literally fell out, or had to be vacuumed out. The sleeve bearings were rusted, and had to be soaked in the Coke-Cola solution, then brushed with a wire toothbrush, as well as the shafts that protrude out of the brushroller.. Then I coated them in Zoom oil, and later still, wiped that off, and reassembled it with a new Filter Queen Belt. It took off like gangbusters, and within a few minutes sounded just like it should...Humming along with a beat in it's pulse...
The outsides of all the machine were scrubbed and wahed down with copious amounts of simple green, a fine steel wool, and plenty of paper towel. After doing all that I saturated everyhting with VacPolish, and buffed everythign to the shine it was going to take no matter what I did.
All in all, I'm pretty crafty, and have had to do lots of "engineering" to many machines before. I have yet to find tools that look "right"; buit that's all in the future. I got it cleaned up, looking good and the best part...working!!!
Look for photo's tomorrow probably around later evening!!!
Chad