cars-guy
New member
Hey everyone new to the forum but not vintage vacuums. I’ve been slowly collecting vintage vacs and other appliances since I was 10 but never did much besides clean them and put them on a shelf. I haven’t done any collecting or much with what I had for a number of years until I started pulling apart the trash pile find sanitaire we use around the house to jb weld a crack in the base. Upon taking off the hood and seeing how disgusting it was underneath, I wondered if all my old vacuums were as nasty underneath (I was right). This thought spawned into 2 months of restorations and rebuilds with more machines left to go. Armed with tools and not being 10 anymore, here is the saga. P.S. I’m terrible at taking before and progress pictures but I have some. I’ll toss a new project on the bench and before I even think to take a photo I’m usually almost done
My first vacuum. Eureka model 1429. 10 years old and $6 bucks at a garage sale. I originally cleaned it up (meaning windex on the outside) and painted over the paint transfers and rust in the hood with what 10 year old me thought was a perfect color matched craft paint to the plastic base and white hood. To say the least it was not. 10 year old me liked it though. Anyway, lots of cleaning, polishing and a fresh paint job with an off white auto paint that actually matched and full top to bottom rebuild.
Eureka model 5048 self propelled. All it needed was a proper tear down, proper cleaning, Re oiling, rebuild of the self propelled unit and brush roll
Hoover model 33. Again just a proper tear down, rebuild and polish of the plastic and all painted surfaces. I was also able to repair and recondition the outer bag
Hoover Model 28. Just like the other Hoovers, the motor and brush roll just needed a tear down, cleaning and thorough servicing. The base needed a lot of scrubbing to remove paint marks and even out the color of the finish, brush roll rebuilt, cord replaced (it was fine but white and installed all wrong.) all the dark brown paint was polished and the Bakelite hood cleaned and shined up a bit (didn’t want to do to much to the Bakelite and risk ruining it). Finally I washed and ironed the bag and it looks pretty good. Down the road if I feel like it and want to put the money into it I’ll powder coat the base to get the right color and finish as the original.
Sweeper Vac Hand Vac model 45. More of the usual tear down, cleaning and oiling of all moving parts. This time I got to polish aluminum. No before photo but the aluminum was not terrible but not great either.
Finally the Hoover Model 450 I just finished. A fun but scary tear down and restoration. I started with the bag. I attempted to lightly wash it by hand in mild detergent but simply getting wet caused it to fall apart at any fold or seam. I did what I could to clean and iron it anyway and was able to sew it back together at its weak spots. Since it’s not original I just tried to make it look the part. If anyone has any original or after market bags that fit and would be willing to part with one please let me know
. Finally lots of buffing (I had some help with that part) and polishing and I think it’s the best I’ve done so far. 
Made a new gasket by coloring in the mating surface on the base with sharpie and wetting the gasket material with alcohol to make a transfer. Not perfect but worked way better than I thought it would.
Finally it all came together wonderfully
Well that’s been my life for the last two months. I’ll keep updating as I have a number of other vacuums to clean up/restore. Currently out of commission for a bit after an Electrolux bit me really good while trying to get the fan off and needed my thumb stitched up. And no I was not stupid enough to leave it plugged in. I was smart and used an impact gun with 10x the power of the vacuum motor Itself
. Yeah… not my best moment. No pain no gain.
My first vacuum. Eureka model 1429. 10 years old and $6 bucks at a garage sale. I originally cleaned it up (meaning windex on the outside) and painted over the paint transfers and rust in the hood with what 10 year old me thought was a perfect color matched craft paint to the plastic base and white hood. To say the least it was not. 10 year old me liked it though. Anyway, lots of cleaning, polishing and a fresh paint job with an off white auto paint that actually matched and full top to bottom rebuild.
Eureka model 5048 self propelled. All it needed was a proper tear down, proper cleaning, Re oiling, rebuild of the self propelled unit and brush roll
Hoover model 33. Again just a proper tear down, rebuild and polish of the plastic and all painted surfaces. I was also able to repair and recondition the outer bag
Hoover Model 28. Just like the other Hoovers, the motor and brush roll just needed a tear down, cleaning and thorough servicing. The base needed a lot of scrubbing to remove paint marks and even out the color of the finish, brush roll rebuilt, cord replaced (it was fine but white and installed all wrong.) all the dark brown paint was polished and the Bakelite hood cleaned and shined up a bit (didn’t want to do to much to the Bakelite and risk ruining it). Finally I washed and ironed the bag and it looks pretty good. Down the road if I feel like it and want to put the money into it I’ll powder coat the base to get the right color and finish as the original.
Sweeper Vac Hand Vac model 45. More of the usual tear down, cleaning and oiling of all moving parts. This time I got to polish aluminum. No before photo but the aluminum was not terrible but not great either.
Finally the Hoover Model 450 I just finished. A fun but scary tear down and restoration. I started with the bag. I attempted to lightly wash it by hand in mild detergent but simply getting wet caused it to fall apart at any fold or seam. I did what I could to clean and iron it anyway and was able to sew it back together at its weak spots. Since it’s not original I just tried to make it look the part. If anyone has any original or after market bags that fit and would be willing to part with one please let me know
. Finally lots of buffing (I had some help with that part) and polishing and I think it’s the best I’ve done so far. Made a new gasket by coloring in the mating surface on the base with sharpie and wetting the gasket material with alcohol to make a transfer. Not perfect but worked way better than I thought it would.
Finally it all came together wonderfully
Well that’s been my life for the last two months. I’ll keep updating as I have a number of other vacuums to clean up/restore. Currently out of commission for a bit after an Electrolux bit me really good while trying to get the fan off and needed my thumb stitched up. And no I was not stupid enough to leave it plugged in. I was smart and used an impact gun with 10x the power of the vacuum motor Itself
. Yeah… not my best moment. No pain no gain.
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