One of my recent succesful repairs was this Kirby Classic III. My grandpa bought it back in the 70s or so. It had always served him well. I pulled it out of storage some time ago. When I tried it, it didn't work. Power comes through a two prong extension cord. So I tested that with a drill. The drill didn't spin. I poked some multimeter leads in the end, and only 20 volts were making it to the plug. I didn't have a two-prong extension cord handy, but Ebay had an exact match. So I ordered it and when it arrived the vacuum started right up!
I'm hoping it will run for another 20 years. We polished some of the aluminum with some old green paste that came with a Dremel kit. It shined up pretty nicely. And it Vacuums really well
While I was waiting for the extension cord, I saw a modern, working Kirby at Goodwill. They are still designed roughly the same way.
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The Vacuum as we polished it
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Some shines return
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.
They are excellent machines!
I found two at our thrift store years ago very cheap and rewired one cord and cleaned the bags and brushes...did not think about polishing...that looks great.
When we moved I never intended to have carpet again so gave them away.
Has yours been used bagless?
The one's I had were and very hard to clean out.
"We're all just walking each other home." -Ram Dass
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder."-Rumi
"It's all one song!" -Neil Young
I had one of those years ago, I owned a commercial janitorial service, and the Kirby was a heavy creature, wasn't our day to day use machine, but when we needed the serious stuff, it came out. Awesome machines, built well and fix easily.
Glad you have that one back to life!
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