March 25th, 2009
kirby motor breakdown
So I broke down the kirby motor a couple of weeks ago in an effort to clean that puppy up. You can imagine the grossness that is wanting to roast coffee with a device that used to pick up dirt. I’m glad to say that it was relatively easy to tear this vacuum down and disassemble the parts that handle the air flow.
Here is the vacuum cleaner base before I began removing parts.
There were 5 screws holding on the front cover. Once removed, we can see the entire front area and propeller. I also had to remove the safety lever on the front from the housing to have some wiggle room.
Here is the back part of the motor as viewed with the switch to the right. The outer housing was held on with 4 screws.
And a view of the left side.
Here is a close up view of the propeller and shaft. Youc an see the dirt that is caked on.
The main shaft will separate by rotating it clockwise. The propeller slides right off. At this point I cleaned the propeller and housing. I still have a little bit of work to do on the metal housing with a wire brush. The plastic propeller cleaned up nicely in the kitchen sink with some soaking and muscle put into it.
Next, I’ll put all the parts back together and start the air flow testing.