Royal Prince 501 motor brush issue

[chucky500]

Greetings, I have a Royal Prince Model 501 hand vac from the mid-1990s. It has worked fine till a few months ago when the motor started running slow, stuttering and eventually quit. Touching the case everything was quite cold, like it was hardly working. Usually it is mildly warm, although warmer than new, which is about the same warmth trajectory that my first Prince went on till it needed a new motor. Anyways, a couple of days ago I took the lid off the motor. One of the brush plate holddown nuts was way up the threads, so it appears that the brush plate had started walking around or chattering under motor torque. Also one of the brushes appears to be broken. When I plugged it in to the wall outlet, it just went pop and nothing more. I figure the top brush bounced and maybe the plate twisted causing an arc.

So the question is, where do I find a replacement brush set? Probably everyday brushes. It appears to be a Triem motor, which company is hard to contact, tho' I have an email in to them. I'm not up on the world of brushes, so i don't know what parameters I need for ordering a replacement set.

Assuming I get the motor running again, there are some washers that fell off the shaft when I pulled the lid off. Don't know what order they should go in, but that appears to be some kind of thrust bearing in the lid.

This is a nice vac, and I would prefer to fix it and keep it going.

Thanks for your help!

 

[blknblu]

You can also try contacting Helwig Carbon. They may be able to help.


You will probably need to remove one of the carbon brushes for pics/measuring.


 


http://www.helwigcarbon.com/

 


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<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">8900 W Tower Avenue</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53224</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Toll-Free (800) 962-4851</li>
<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">Office (414) 354-2411</li>
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[kirbyclassiciii]

chucky500

I noticed your 501 was made in July 1996 - that makes yours among the very last 501s ever made.

Here's a recent diagram for this machine from Appliance Factory Parts, but be aware that many parts are NLA:
http://www.appliancefactoryparts.com/content/pdfs/194066-1.pdf

~Ben

 

[human]

Hope you can get it running again. They're great little machines. I have two of them, a blue one from the late '80s and a red and gray one from sometime in the '60s.

 

[chucky500]

Here's how this played out...

I ended up going to Helwig Carbon and having to send in my old brushes as well as my brush plate. They did not have a brush ready in stock so they had to make up a custom brush. For some $65 they made a set of two brushes up and for an incremental dollar or two more, they gave me a second set. They also sent me new springs to go with the brushes.

NOTE: I did get the feeling that Helwig does not really deal with individual accounts, rather commercial with high count items, but they did treat me well as an individual and the whole thing went through. Be certain you get all your parts back - for instance, they forgot to send back my brush plate in the first mailing, and fortunately they did not toss it or somesuch or I would've been sunk. They promptly sent back the plate when I contacted them.

Helwig knows its stuff when it comes to brushes. The brushes fit perfectly and sat on the commutator real nice. I did have some challenges getting the brushes installed in trying not to damage the springs and getting them to seat properly on top of the brushes. I had a spring or two go shooting out into space. So the procedure turned out to be to slide the brush wire lead through its slot in the brush holder, then slide the spring sitting on top of the brush into the holder. It worked out to hold the brush in with a wire tie. The photo shows both brushes held in with wire ties, but I really only needed to have one tied in while I worked the second. Then having the brushes held in I could wiggle the brush plate down the threads and into position. At this point, I added internal shakeproof washers under each nut, so that I would hopefully not run into this whole problem again.

Then I installed the motor cover, best-guessing how the washers should be stacked on the pole coming up out of the motor to the thrust bearing. I decided I'd better anchor that pole down before attempting to start the motor up, lest the thing start spinning out of control like a slowing top, destroying two new brushes.

The moment of truth was at hand... Throw the switch, and voila, it spun up and ran perfectly. Ran it for a good half hour without and with the motor spinning the beater brush assembly. Everything has worked fine since with normal motor temperatures. This vac is reborn! Hopefully good to go for another ten to twenty years.

Thanks all for your help, especially the Helwig-Carbon pointer!

 

[kirbyclassiciii]

chucky500

That is wonderful!

~Ben

 

[blknblu]

fantastic


I noticed a groove in your brushes.


That would have been hard to replicate using generic carbon brushes.


Money was well spent.

 

[durango159]

Congrats on the new brush set!!

I went through a local electric motor shop and had carbon brushes made for a Hoover PowerMax power nozzle motor. It ran me around $80 but I gave them the entire power nozzle so they not only made carbon brushes but cleaned and sanded the commutator and did an overall cleaning and check of the entire power nozzle motor. The motor was in very poor condition and basically seized prior to their work up. While I was shocked at the price at the end I was very happy with the overall repair job. It is a skilled technical repair though just like automobiles are so it's not simple work!