The Summer of Electroluv: First Dirt

[DesertTortoise]

The Electrolux "shop vac" carpet torpedo has vacuumed a carpet. Yes, it's true.

In our last episode in the driveway we saw our much abused vacuum cleaner breathe, and most importantly, exhaust fresh air. Yay! It smells like a Mike Diamond plumber. The water soaked motor didn't go FOOM, in fact there was no drama whatsoever. But when I tried the powered floor brush, nuthin. Dead as a door nail.

Tonight I had a little time so I removed the upper cover, plugged the brush right into the handle, broke out the VOM and turned the vacuum on. No power to the motor. Hmmmmm??? Took the cheesy plastic cover I have rubber banded to the top of the swivel neck (single retaining screw is stripped, nice huh), lifted the neck out of the base and removed a somewhat damaged protective cover over the wire run. Ah, there is the problem, the brown wire was severed. Not a very good design here, if you use the swivel full throw you risk severing a wire. That is what appears to have happened. It doesn't help that the wires are very small guage, almost smaller than any of the holes on my wire stripper. And those wires take 120 VAC!

So I stripped some insulation back on the damaged ends of the wire, twisted them together, soldered them securely, taped over the repair carefully (I don't have shrink wrap for wire that small) and put the swivel neck back together. Plugged the vacuum handle back into the swivel neck, and voila, happy noises from the powered brush. That was simple, and most importantly, cheap enough.

With everything back together and the brush on the end of the wands I gave her a test run in the room I am sitting in right now. What an interesting sounding vacuum! Aside from the lower tone of the motor, even on high speed, the powered brush was most unexpected sounding, like heavy armor in the winter snow of the Fulda Gap (you have to be a cold warrior of a certain vintage to get that one). It has a low rpm rumble like the brush is turning half the speed of a Powermate brush.

I guess I'll fill a bag in day to day use and see how well I like it. Big bummer for now is that I don't have a hard floor brush for it, only the powered head, and I have a lot of hard flooring to vacuum. I'll see how it does with the powered brush attached but turned off but it really needs a proper horse hair floor brush. Unfortunately the diameter of the Electrolux wands are not compatible with any of my Kenmore floor brushes or I could use a real nice one I use with my Kenmores.

Next up is the Sidekick 2. Oh, that thing is gnarley looking inside. Grody to the max! But my $25 Starvation Army Electrolux Shop Vac lives and vacuums carpets now. Go back and look at some of the early images of that poor thing and you might never guess it would come this far. It sure made me work for it. I had some help and encouragement here though, for which I am grateful. I ran out of battery after only three glamor shots and am out of batteries until I go shopping tomorrow. Here ya go, 90% refurbished and a working vac. Yay.

Thanks Tom for the hose.

 

[DesertTortoise]

PS: the hose is laid out on the floor when I'm not using it. I never leave hoses on a wand like in those images. Nein, it verboten!

 

[suckolux]

Nice work!

 

[DesertTortoise]

It just dawned on me as I was using this vac that the powered floor brush doesn't have any form of height adjustment. WTH? Vacuuming under a bed I had to be careful to only turn the swivel clockwise to get the handle to lay flat, knowing that if I turn it too far counterclockwise it will sever the brown wire again. I am not digging this powered floor brush.

I will probably replace the whole swivel since the screw hole is stripped (oh, I guess I could JB Weld it and drill a new pilot hole for the self tapping screw to bite into) which requires some urban engineering for the time being (rubber bands to hold the decorative plastic cover in place) and the thing that is supposed to protect the wires running down the side of he swivel doesn't. I need to come up with some sort of protective grommet (there is a large selection of rubber grommets at Home Depot I was sorting through yesterday but I wasn't thinking about this vac at the time, I was brainstorming the Avocado Bomber's recuperation) to keep the wires from being guillotined where they exit the swivel. Other vacs run the wires outside the swivel, and they use much heavier guage wires. This brush is not impressing me at all. Too bad because it is quiet and the vac itself has excellent suction.

 

[Gr8DaneDad]

Phil,


 


Did you install the new brushroll or are you still using the old one? The wires aren't as fragile as you think. As long as they are properly routed they won't get cut. I've been using my Legacy for almost 10 years and there is zero damage to the wires in the swivel.

 

[DesertTortoise]

Good Morning Gr8DaneDad!

I am still using the original brush. If you look at my old post titled "Eeeewwwwww" you will see it cleaned up fabulously. The brush had so much stuff wrapped around it and it was so encrusted with crud it looked like it was a goner. For giggles I cut all the stuff off that was wrapped around the roller and then scrubbed the bejeezus out of it in some citrus degreaser. Now it looks just like the new brush except no lacquer on the wood. The wood itself looks freshly cut. The bristles are nearly full length still. It's a good brush still. I touched a little grease to the bearings on the end of the roller, and I mean just a hint of some white lithium grease, before assembling the brush into the base and it works just fine. Quiet like I said, just different than I am used to and no height adjustment.

I sweated wire routing when I reassembled it, and tried to give the wires above the swivel enough length to permit me to turn the handle 90 degrees, so in theory it ought to be fine, but I still have a stripped hole in the upper swivel that prevents the cover screw from tightening, and the little inner wire protector that covers the notch in the side of the swivel the wires run through is broken and there is no fix so I'll just order a new swivel and that protector and do it right. Now that the brown wire is a bit shorter I'm not sure I will ever have enough wire length to allow turning the handle a full 90 degrees counterclockwise. I lost 3/4 of an inch of length from the brown wire to effect the splice, so I may need to splice a bit of wire in there or just buy a new harness for the brush. The place where the wires exit the swivel makes me uncomfortable. At the very least I need to come up with a protective sleeve like you have on a power cord. Panasonic and Wessel Werk don't leave thin wires exposed like that in places where they might rub something, they have thick sleeves and rubber grommets.

 

[ronni]

Nice work, Dircik. That is a sharp-looking machine--good thing you salvaged it.

I hope Tom's conjecture that the wires in the power nozzle were not properly routed is indeed the case and that the tank you've worked so hard on will be an effective contributor to your house-cleaning.

I have wondered, too, why Aerus--both now and in its Electrolux days--hasn't seen fit to include height adjustments on any of its power nozzles. It could simply be that their thought is that the combined air flow of the tank and power nozzle is robust enough to negate the need of the feature.

Have you considered going to work for Aerus in its R & D (Research & Development) Division? You have some good ideas for design improvements. In fact, if Aerus were able to secure both you and Tom in management positions it would definitely soar to new heights!

Another thought is that you consider producing a vacuum newsletter of your restoration adventures, anecdotes, tips, and historical facts. You have a talent with words and an ability to synthesize your vacuum knowledge with persons, events, and information both related and unrelated. Dare I say, too, that your tough "tortoise shell" provides for some lively debates every now and then which always stimulates learning.

 

[DesertTortoise]

And just to add insult to injury today, my dog chewed up a brand new, never used, still in the wrapper Kenmore straight hose end I had sitting on my table still in the protective shipping envelope. He got my digital camera too, and chewed the crap out of the camera case. The camera survived however, but the hose end is damaged, even though he didn't penetrate the inner wrapper!

I was so proud thinking I found that Sears still has these parts in the system, and here was one sitting on my very own kitchen table, ready for me to show it to my friend at the vacuum store like a cat with a fresh caught mouse, and the dog goes and ruins the whole thing! $25 too for his pinche little chew toy. Baaaaad dog, baaaaad!