Rare find: majestic ball bearing upright

[oldskoolguy]

So I was a little curious about these early vacuums that Kirby and royal evolved from, and I need to buy one at the right price. So I found this majestic vacuum for $30 total on eBay, and it was quite the odd ball, it had a latch on the top on the front where you could put a hose converter on, and the shaft extended a little farther to what I want to call a front compartment where the belt would go (basically, you could hook the hose up closer to the fan and not need to remove the belt. It didn’t run when I recieved it, but after swapping out the old carbon brushes, which had a grove worn on to the ends of them and their springs had separated, and putting in brushes meant for a Kirby 505-ds80 (I thought that would be a good fit because their bodies looked the most like the majestic’s. After that, it ran! It also has bearing issues where I had to remove the front ball bearing (it didn’t fit in the sleeve and was held in place by a cover secured over the front bearing plate (the motor wouldn’t turn by hand with it in place), after removing that, the motor started turning a little more freely but when I took out a bearing holder (there already was one in the rear bearing plate), the motor turned much better. This leads me to believe that someone tried restoring it some time ago, but quit partway through because they didn’t have the right parts. Currently, it runs, but a little rough. It is missing: the handle, bag, switch, brush. Additionally, the wheels are bad, but that might be expected with the age of the vacuum. I thought I would show it off to you guys here! Feel free to suggest what I should do if I’m to restore it (money is no objective at the moment!) or just share your thoughts or knowledge on it.

 

[lesinutah]

Hey

Nice find. Don't quote me but I think majestic made first Kirby vacuettes or eezes. It could be crossover or sister vacuum to Kirby sanitation system. I may be wrong but you may have a valuable vacuum. It's in realy good shape.
Les

 

[madman]

Wow that's neat! I really like the little door for the hose attachment. That was some great ingenuity that seems like it was lost to time. When you open it, it actually seals off the nozzle... aside from the small hole for the belt to go through. Not a bad looking machine, either.

It also appears you are missing the handle fork. That's a bummer. I wonder what you could improvise for that. The bag fitting looks nearly identical to Clements/Cadillac ones... not that those are common enough to find a bag ring, just pointing it out. Making a bag ring out of plastic wouldn't be terribly difficult.

 

[lesinutah]

Hey

I'm not sure majestic was what I meant. Filter queen majestic. It was a different company.
The vacuum is a very very nice vacuum. It's in great shape and a beautiful vacuum.
Les

 

[huskyvacs]

Oh yes, I remember now. I seen this vacuum about 1-2 months ago and looked at it and passed over it because it was missing the handle & fork, which aren't easy to find.

Glad you got it fixed, and glad you got it, as it sounds like the problems this one had would have been too much for a beginner like me to tackle!

For the handle and fork, you'd probably have to bodge together something close to the original fork until you come across the proper parts. Maybe something from a lobby dustpan or a commercial push-broom, it's plastic, but these old vacs don't weigh too much. Not sure if a Kirby handle would fit it either.

 

[hoover300]

Nice!

I found the ad for it on google.