Revisiting the Eureka 2010

[kirbyklekter]

"What's under the hood?"

Hi Barry, When you mentioned something rolling around under the hood I thought one of the two springs holding the hood down had come loose, not uncommon. If you find a plastic wire nut rolling around check the wiring up top to see if any wires twisted together are exposed. If yes then check for any other wire that might have come loose that needs to be included when you twist the wire nut back on.

Also, check to see if your headlight (if one exists) has come loose where the mounting bracket is located. Some have one screw holding the socket assembly to the motor housing,others just clamp on .

Also#2. Some Eureka/Sanitaires have a plastic air scoop on each side of the motor for cooling. These are just pushed into place and though rare one could fall off.

I'm wondering if the worn spots on your vinyl bag are from vacuuming under furniture

etc. I've had a few Eurekas that when in upright position the bag seemed to be stretched a bit causing it to pull at the bottom where the bag connects to the base. I had to stretch the spring it hangs from a little to reduce the excess tension . I don't know if these vinyl bags shrink a little as hey age and dry out and crumble,it may depend on the quality of materials used in the manufacturing of said. Hope you enjoy restoring and using your Eureka. l like every one I've owned. Billy

 

[justjunque]

Name that chunk o' plastic

Billy,
Thank you for the suggestions! However, I have an update.
My Eureka doesn't have a headlight, and all of the hood springs are in place. See the following.

Well, since my needle nose pliers are nowhere to be found, I haven't been able to look "under the hood" yet.
However, I was holding the vacuum upside down, and rotating it in every possible direction. Eventually, a piece of plastic or possibly Bakelite fell out. That has to be the foreign object that was rattling around.
Now, all that's left is for someone who knows their Eurekas to identify it, and inform me that the vacuum is trash, now that this piece is broken. Or, unrealistic best case scenario, there's nothing under the hood that looks like this, and it must have come from somewhere else and just got stuck inside there.
I'll attach a picture of the object.

On a positive note, having evicted the loose object, I finally plugged the vacuum in and hit the switch.
To my untrained ear, the motor sounds fantastic. I don't even hear any grindy, growly sounds on wind-down.
But, on a negative note, while the brushroll spins freely, its bearings sound horrible. Would it do any good to try to get some blue can 3-in-1 oil in there, or do I have to take it to a vacuum shop and have actual grease put in there?
On another negative note, one side of the bag's zipper came off the track, and I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to get it back on. Is the bag done for now?
I swear, I thought this vacuum was in such great shape when I bought it. But, it just seems like it doesn't want me to get it up and running. I don't know what I'm doing, and it just seems to fight me at every turn.

 

[justjunque]

And, another rookie question:

Can anyone tell me what the black cloth strap is, that's attached to the inside top of the outer bag?
At the bottom of it, it looks like there's some old adhesive of some sort. Was it originally attached somewhere at the bottom too?

 

[eurekaprince]

I have never seen a black strip like that in a Eureka upright bag. Maybe it was glued to one side of the zipper opening as a paper bag protector? To protect the paper bag from getting pinched when zipping up the zipper?

 

[justjunque]

That sounds like as good a guess as any!
The last time I laid hands on a Eureka upright, I was probably in grade school. So, I don’t remember it.
I’ll try to look on the inside of the bag, and see if I can find anything that looks like the strip may have been attached. There seems to be some sort of old adhesive residue on the bottom of the strip. But, that doesn’t tell me anything.

 

[kirbyklekter]

Just wunderin...

Hey Barry, have you taken the hood off or to the side? If so, how'd things look? Curious if that black piece of bakelite that fell out was from motor or ?

Also, were you able to salvage the brush roll?

Do you think a full service dry cleaners could help with fixing or replacing the bag zipper? Billy

 

[justjunque]

Hey Billy,

Sorry. I haven't made any further progress with that one. I got to a point where I have too many irons in the fire at the same time. I shifted my focus to some of the easier stuff first.
I kind of thought about a dry cleaner for the zipper. I'd just be concerned that they're not used to working with somewhat delicate, fifty year old vinyl.

Barry