Thrifting at Pete's Subterranean Vacuutorium

[aeoliandave]

aka Pete Kelley's cellar Wrecked Room. No, the room is not wrecked, it's just overstuffed with treasures.
Since just before I headed to the September Convention I've been waiting for a non-rainy free day to go pick up the Electrolux CB Pete found and rescued for me. What with ending the theatre season and then beavering away at the outside winterizing chores last week I finally managed to get over to Sarnia on Sunday.
I went for the Lux, of course but also to see Pete before I head out on my first Winter Roadtrip.

Autumn has come - it arrived in mid September - and gone already - the trees have lost most of their leaves here and the hiway & country road vistas are brown, brown, brown as far as the eye can see. Until you look up and it was a fine sunny day for a drive.

 

[aeoliandave]

The CB was well worth saving.
Big shiny stainless steel unblemished tub without a single dent. Paint excellent with only a few touches of rust inside the rolled upper rim lip the latches clamp in to. Must have had some water that didn't evaporate fast enough. The inner cone-shaped flannel filter is clean as new. Wheeled dolly is riveted to the tub and the rubber bumper is unscathed. Hose has all original external cord and ties and only the aluminum PN-4 needs a steel wool polish. Aluminum wands are very basic but have Electrolux clips holding the sections together.
This CB lived a good & easy life. I'm gonna guess it came from an industrial building where it was used to clean up the shop floor and probably the front showroom & office corridor carpets.

But is is BIG. So now I have the best Shop Vac sized workshop vacuum ever. So pretty.

What's that red bag beside it belong to, I wonder?

 

[aeoliandave]

Pete has this charming way of looking around his basement and asking you if you want this..or that...almost apologetically.

Would I like a Kirby Heritage?

Well, I have a lot of different Kirbys in many models and colours and I knew I had a Heritage 2 with the gray bag, so sure.

 

[aeoliandave]

But wait, there's more.
And we're on a Canadian Electrolux roll.
a pale yellow & sand E-2000 with matching PN-2000

and a slate blue & chalk gray 2100 with matching blue, extra wide 13" brushroll, L-shaped Omni-flow Automatic PN.

OK, I've sucked all the goodness 3 times from the same picture so let's move on, shall we?

 

[aeoliandave]

Did I need any Eurekas?

Well, I have 5 or six including a Power Drive so sure.
Besides, it's baby blue and has the hose converter and the 1940s Desoto hood styling I like.
All wedged into the trunk and he tosses in one more odd stickvac.

I have admired this green ZENITH in the past with it's 1960s style. It looks so familiar but I can't recall what broom vac it's based on. Anyone help me out here?

 

[aeoliandave]

The traditional garage door beauty shot.

Thank you, Pete

 

[broomvac]

Nice vacs!

You might wanna twist the emptor all the way onto the Kirby. Unless the issue is that the rear wheel assembly was replaced with the wider axle from a later Heritage II.

 

[collector2]

Hey Dave:

The Zenith is the same as the Lewyt stick vacs (and Singer and GE)

Doug

 

[aeoliandave]

The rest of the story and a cautionary tale.

2 weeks ago I had the new Michelin snow & ice tires mounted and balanced on the original 'ugly' Outback alloys at Canadian Tire and stacked them in the garage.
1 week ago I had them swapped on to the car at Mister Lube where I always go for rotation and fluid changes and belts, in anticipation of the coming snows...and they will arrive I assure you.

So on the long & straight freshly paved hiway to Sarnia I quickly noticed at 60 mph a thrumming vibration coming through the steering wheel. At 70 the wheel was vibrating so bad it was like holding on to a wobbly floor polisher.
Considering that I had the suspension dropped and a full dealer alignment done and the ride was smooth as silk this was a cause for concern.
I know a wheel unbalanced when I feel one. Either one wheel was bolted on askew due to a stone on the hub or one wheel has thrown a weight.

Pretty much the only thing on my mind on the drive home.
Besides the brown landscape...[this post was last edited: 11/9/2011-00:07]

 

[aeoliandave]

I decide to talk the situation over with Felix and Hector.

It's so nice to be home more these days and there's nothing the cats like more than pinning me down on the couch for a little tv watching and a snooze.
(shameless segue to cute adorable pussycat pictures.)[this post was last edited: 11/9/2011-00:07]

 

[aeoliandave]

Hector was not amused.

 

[aeoliandave]

Felix will either curl up behind my knees or plop himself over my leg with those Huge paws...and he snores.

He's twice the size of 13 year old Hector. Felix is the size of a large raccoon and only 3 years old.[this post was last edited: 11/9/2011-00:10]

 

[aeoliandave]

But he came up with a brilliant plan how to proceed.

I have stored my summer wheels inside the boat so they are inaccessible until late April.
I am leaving on an extended road-trip vacation in a week.

Take the car back to Canadian Tire, make an appointment and have all four wheels checked for balance fine tuning.
Fortunately they were able to see to me right away this morning.

 

[aeoliandave]

Wobbly wheels and steering on my beloved Road Rocket simply will not do.

Knowing that the wheels had already been balanced, I explained my deductions & suppositions to the young man and he went to work.[this post was last edited: 11/9/2011-00:11]

 

[aeoliandave]

This is not the same person who installed them the first time. This lad listened to what I had to say.

 

[aeoliandave]

The balance machine was hidden from view so I decided to take a walk outside and watch how this is done. Fascinating.

and obviously accurate when used correctly.

I saw the numbers come up and clearly something was off. He hammered in a small rim weight, checked again and added a few sticky lead weights closer to the hub face.

Numbers came up 0:00[this post was last edited: 11/9/2011-00:12]

 

[aeoliandave]

Went through the same thing with wheel #2.

He opened the door and told me both wheels were way off balance and he was going to check the rears.

Same result. It would appear that these wheels did not initially get the balancing I had paid for.

And so there was no charge and a big apology from the Shop manager and 5 vouchers for oil changes. But since I get my oil changed at Mr Lube I exchanged them for 5 free touchless Car Washes at Can Tire.

 

[aeoliandave]

Good job, young man!

So he took it for a spin around the parkinglot and said it felt fine. 'Nice car, says he. Turbo?'

I said, 'let's go for a test ride and really open 'er up'.

'Ok, I'm on my break now.'

I took us one concession over to the two lane straight that's smoothly paved all the way out to the airport and always deserted.
Took 'er up to 150 kph on boost, according to the Garmin (that's 93.2 mph for you Americans) without a wiggle or judder. 'That's what I'm a-talkin' about!'
Smooth as silk again. and a 'Holy Sh*t' from the grinning young lad, for old fogey Dave.

The cautionary part? Please do not ignore little things like this in your car. With even more distracted drivers on our roads this winter we need every advantage we can get out there. Check your tire pressures weekly.

And it's good to know I can if I need to...go ridiculously fast with confidence, I mean.
Wednesday I'm going in for the winter oil change. Will be the last mild day for a while so out come the vacuum and the cleaning rags, a car wash and a waxing.

Dave

 

[starryblues4u]

the zenith stick vac

Shetland had one like it.