The dreaded Hoover Dual V Windtunnel

[gmerkt]

After a minute or two of hesitation, I got one of these at salvage price with some other machines. When plugged in, it ran but made some ominous clattering sounds. Upon inspection back at the vacuum cleaner hospital, I found that half of the bottom end was worn out. One of the bearing plates had failed and ruined the brushrolls on one side.

This is a Model U8144-900 and even though only eight years old, parts availability is limited. The counter-rotating brush rolls are lefts and rights in two opposing pairs. Of the damaged brush rolls, one was very badly shot but the other was salvageable. HESCO had one brush roll but not the other. After studying their parts list, I decided the one they were out of was the one I needed the more badly. I went ahead and ordered it, thinking I could rework it somehow. When the parts arrived, I discovered that the one they sent was the one I needed the most so I either misread the catalog or they had it misidentified.

Some of the screw holes in the plastic bottom end were stripped or cracked, so I had to repair them with liquid epoxy or rebuild them with epoxy putty.

The plastic tool compartment door was missing but that is one of the parts that HESCO still had. Fortunately, they also still have the bearing plates. This is a critical part on this machine. Fortunately, the parts for it are relatively inexpensive.

For this machine, I have both a bagless dirt capture bin with pleated element filter and a separate capture bin that takes the HEPA Y bag within.

It's all back together and running now. I'm not sure what to do with it; it's not my line of country as a keeper and I'm not sure I want to sell it to someone as a daily user. Mostly, I worked on this machine out of curiosity and challenge.

Panasonic and Kenmore (built together at the same factory?) both offered dual brushroll machines similar to this at one time. I haven't worked on any of these.

 

[gmerkt]

The wand section is Hoover, but not approptiate for this machine. I'll get one soon; I looked at the 35 or 40 extra wands I have and couldn't find the correct one.

 

[gmerkt]

Brush rolls. As viewed from the bottom, the upper left roll was the new replacement that I installed. The two on the right appear to have newer bristles than the one in the lower left, so I believe this pair has been replaced in the past. The new bearing cap housing is while instead of black as the original. If I'd taken the time, I could've painted it to match.

 

[thissucks]

much like the panisonic dual sweep- what a sad machine that is.

cool concept though.

 

[aeoliandave]

A very peculier vacuum brushroll concept

Gary, the base of a slightly earlier version of the Dual V Windtunnel (mine does not have the turbinetool) is what I used to build my Monster Vac on, which at the last minute I decided to take to the Minneapolis Convention. The one I had, which I took off Pete's hands, had been abused in a renovation cleanup and had impacted nails, staples and plaster dust, the upper body was cracked open and the dustbin had cigarette burns distorting the bin and filter cylinder.

I was intrigued by the double brushrolls and the clear double dirt paths to watch the ingestion, but mine too had stripped bearing plates. It appears high heat friction melted them. I set it aside until a chance inquiry at a Vac Shop in western New York turned up a new set. This set my mind to humming...

I built the Monster Machine just for fun from an assortment of spare parts but then the darn thing went and won two Blue Ribbons - 1rst Place MonsterVac & Most Innovative (?) - so I have to keep it now.

In this pic the FrankenHeuver has completed it's back pass over the test carpet. Surprising me and probably everyone watching, on it's forward pass it sucked up the all rice, confetti and sand without scattering. There is some white 'Angelhair' fluff - whatever it is called - in the left tunnel whipped up & compacted into balls by the helix 'wringer' brush action, but the suction is so high merely tilting the machine back swallowed the clog. It was fun to watch.

An interesting experiment by Hoover, to be sure, but I think doomed to an early death by the heat generated by the four rapidly spinning brushes, especially if they get jammed with warp & weft carpet threads wrapped around both rolls. The gears & transmission for the rolls is very robustly built and torqe-y enough to snap most threads but...jute & nylon backing weave rope is virtually unbreakable.

Dave

 

[gmerkt]

Definitely they are interesting machines but of course that wasn't their intended purpose. A couple of days ago, I was in an old vac shop north of here. They have a large area in the front of their store lined up with dozens and dozens of all kinds of vacs in various states of disrepair. It's the vacuum cleaner equivalent of an auto junkyard. I go in there from time to time, looking for potential donors (like right now a Kenmore Progressive 116.33912 301, which I got a beautiful example of - minus dirt bin. This is the direct drive machine with two induction hoses that go down to the floor nozzle. Another story altogether.

Anyway, in this establishment I saw two Hoover Savvy uprights, side by side. One had the four brushroll arrangement, the other the typical single brushroll. The trim, decalomania, etc., was identical from one to the other except for the differences in the floor nozzle to accommodate the different brushroll arrangements.

I work mainly but not exclusively on Kenmore and Hoover brands. It continues to amaze me just how many different models they have churned out in the past decade and a half or so. I guess this explains at least in part why some (what we think of as) recent Hoover models are already so difficult to get parts for.

 

[super-sweeper]

wait....

hesco sells replacement brushes for these hoovers!?!?

 

[gmerkt]

Well, HESCO had one side of the brushes when I called them a month or so ago. Strangely enough, another one of these creatures came my way, a slightly different model, the U-8132-900. Only difference is color shade of a couple of parts near as I can tell. Anyway, I had to order a few small items for it. It didn't need brushes but I thought I'd check again anyway and this time, just this past Friday, they no longer had either side. I did see some on Ebay at modest cost.

This latest machine had vacuum when I checked it out but no brush roll action. I took apart the bottom end and cleaned that all out without finding any obvious bad parts. When I pull things down, I usually lay them out in order of disassembly. So after cleaning the brushrolls, I tried to replace them as removed and something just didn't work right. I took two that had come out of one common side, held them up and they were identical. Some genius had installed two lefts in one side, and two rights in the other. Since these work in diagonal opposing pairs (one left and right in each side), the bristles were getting tangled up. This caused the thermal protection switch to cut off. When I reassembled it in the correct manner, I pressed the reset on the switch and away they went just like they were supposed to.

When I get finished with this one, I'll have two such machines and don't know yet what to do with them.

 

[lunchboxsean]

I recently got one of these at goodwill and another at a friends vac shop and have taken the best of both to make one good one, but that's another thread. I have a few extra brush rolls if you need them. Not sure about the gearbox, but I can check.

 

[thissucks]

someone brought in one of those, she loved it untill it sploded! literally one side of the nosle exploded on one side.

too much going on for it to be reliable.

 

[blackheart]

My church has/had one

My church had one of these as with any of these bagless hoovers the airflow was pretty poor but the brushrolls were interesting when cleaning up after events i would often reach for the Elite instead despite the shorter cord I've wondered how the dual rows of brushrolls would work on non commercial grade carpeting