Restoration - Hoover Celebrity

My challenge here is to get my Hoover Celebrity working. I was given this a year or so ago, and it never worked. So I thought I would try and fix it up, and clean it at the same time!







This, along with the more common Hoover Constellation floats on air. This particular one is a US model, imported in 1973. I used to have an orange imported Constellation, which I regret selling now. I have an imported Hoover Convertible as well, which will be rebuilt at some point!





First things first is to remove the lid. Take out the tiny circlip and remove the bolt.







Which leaves the main part which I will focus on for now.



Take off the plastic cover and reveal the powerhouse 900w motor!





Wires marked for re-assembly.

Next, remove the 3 bolts holding the bottom plate on, and remove the bottom plate.



This was cleaned with Megs APC, an old wheel brush and a few old MF's



50/50



Next lift out the plate which sandwiches the motor into the machine


This was cleaned, along with the rubber seal.





Next job was to remove and overhaul the wiring.

Switch



By unclipping the metal clips the while thing falls out nicely!



Undo the wires and you have this...



Cleaned up





Next, all the connections to the motor were stripped and cleaned



Before



After (re-cut and stripped)







Next, take the baffle off the top of the motor (3 clips)



Sponge stuff out next



Leaving the motor itself



After a good vac (I didn't wash it as I didn't want it to fall apart, and replacing it would be nigh on impossible!)



Next, remove the motor



And clean up the last piece of chassis



Start to remove the motor (in order of re-assembly L-R)



Remove the 2 nuts



And remove the motor cover





Clean...



Remove the carbon brushes



50/50





Cleaned the capacitor up (The funny thing about this is that all the parts for this machine would have come from Perivale, shipped to the US, assembled and then sold back in the UK at the end of the UK run!)



The motor is now stripped down





AG Metal Polish & 00 wire wool



The bearings were soaked in Tardis, flushed with WD40 then filled with 3in1 oil and left to soak in


Cleaned the coil


The whole thing was re-assembled and put back together in true Haynes book of lies tradition.







I then plugged it in and it still doesn't work! So I need to get the multimeter out and work out which part has failed (my money is on either the switch or capacitor, luckily I have spares for both on a working but scrap constellation (same parts).

After following some advice on the Hooverland messageboard, I bridged the switch, attached another bit of mains cable straight to the motor, turned it on and...

IT RAN :driver:

Ran slowly at first, but after a few seconds it was up to full speed, as the bearings ran them selves in. I also noticed mahoosive sparking from the carbons. I put this down to the fact that they were jammed shut with crud, and would now be pushing against the commutor for the first time in a while.

The sparks died down!

I then took the bridge off the switch, and it still worked. I changed the fuse in the original cable and the f:censored:cker worked :D So, everything tightened and put back together in the motor department, I put that to one side and grabbed... the lid :detailer:

*This machine bore a fair brunt of soot, moulton plastic, wood and diesel fumes when my old car was set on fire to on the drive, so is FILTHY! Some of the tools haven't fully returned to their former glory. However, the hose fared better than my others, which melted in the heat








I took the rubber bumper off first, and hit it with Megs APC, and then Tardis to get the rest of the muck off, and return them to near factory condition.














I used a green 3m spot pad for this part...








Lid was given a tardis wipedown, followed by the below on a black 2m pad. 2 hits of.





Then



Then...



Aaaaand theeeeeen....



All above pics were durings to hide the finish. You need to stick around for that part.

I made a start on the tools









50/50










I sorted out the bodged swivel



The plastic cap no longer stays clipped to the hose, so had had parcel tape wrapped around it to hold it on. (I've had machines from the dump where this is the only problem :confused:)



Much more elegant solution. Tape sandwiches it on, and the swivel still works as the pastic part doesn't swivel anyway

Covered up the random hole as well









Blacklight was buffed off so it could cure whilst I carried on with the tools



I took the rubber sealing grommits out of the tubes and cleaned them up





Which means it's super air-tight now but the tools are a pain to push on :mad:

I had some lunch, then applied CG Butter Wet Wax







50/50 (bottom is clean...)



All cleaned with AG Metal Polish & 00 wire wool





Sadly the lettering started to fade, so I eased back a bit, hence why it still looks bad








All cleaned...



With the tools on, I put the lid back on



and laid the finest dust-sheet outside for some afters :o







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