The XXX is a beautiful piece of early-mid 20th century industrial design, and a fine machine to boot. From an aesthetic standpoint, the XXX and its successor, the LX are major standouts. I had an opportunity to buy an XXX a few weeks ago, but I just came home with the LX that was sitting next to it. Those woven hoses are the Achilles heel of many Electrolux canister models. Your best bet for functionality is going to be to get a non-electrified vinyl replacement hose and just keep the original for display purposes. The nice part is that hose coupling is the same from the XXX, right on up to units made in the 1990s, before Electrolux consolidated U.S. and Canadian production, standardizing to the plastic Canadian style canisters, which had a different (and inferior, IMO) coupling system.
The nearly universal problem with the woven hoses, as you have found, is the rubber liner inside deteriorates over time and they leak like a sieve, robbing the machine of nearly all suction. I remember reading several years ago about different methods for sealing those hoses, but none seemed terribly successful. That said, I seem to recall the liquid latex method was probably the best, but getting an even coating inside the hose to seal it completely was a challenge, not to mention the fact that the latex itself wasn't cheap. That said, if you do try that method, let us know how it goes.
