Can You See What I See?

Today, Louie and I spent today with my brother, 'junkin'. His birthday is Thursday, and we knew we wouldn't be around next weekend to spend the day with him, so we picked him up around noon, went to see his wife, who was at work, ate lunch, said goodbye, and headed for the 'city'. We had a load of stuff to donate to one of the thrift stores, so we dropped our donations off first, so we would have room for more 'junk'! (Hi, my name is Michelle, and I have an addition to thrift stores).

First, we went to the Habitat for Humanity Restore, because Louie wanted some more cabinets to hang in his 'shoppe'. We loaded up on them, put them in the van, and continued 'junkin'. We hit several Goodwills, but the second Goodwill we hit, I found a treasure! I found an Electrolux Vacuum cleaner! It is the Silverado Deluxe. I plugged it in, and the powerhead ran fine, except it was hopping all over the floor. Louie found an eraser bouncing around on the brush, and as soon as he removed that, it sounded fine. I removed the powerhead wand, and checked for suction. I said 'Hey Louie, this thing really SUCKS!' With the $18.38 price tag attached, I didn't have to give it any thought at all whether it would be going home with us or not.

Ok, I agree.......it was not very pretty was it? It was dirty, but I knew with a little soap and water, it would look good as new in the not too distant future! We got it home, and since I hadn't vacuumed yet this weekend, I put a new bag in it, and tried it out. The powerhead kept losing electricity, so I started investigating the problem. I thought the pins were a little loose going into the floor wand end, so I had Louie look at that. I tried it again, and found that the problem actually was at the beginning of the hose. There are little electrical connections that make contact, and when the hose was rotating, it was losing contact. Louie took it apart, and fixed that, but it still wasn't acting too good. Louie wedged a little piece of wood next to the male end of the connector, as a little piece of plastic was broken off, and it didn't fit tight down into the female end. That tightened it right up. It was better, but it still was not as good as it could be, so Louie pinched the pins so they weren't round anymore. That made it fit tighter going together, and it works as good as new now! Yippee! Louie, you're my hero!!! Ok, so with that problem fixed, next, it was bath time for the old 'Silverado'.

As you can see, the cord was a little grimy and grungy...ok a LOT grimy and grungy! A little hot soapy water and a washcloth fixed that in no time.

Good as USED!!!!

Could this BE the same vacuum cleaner???? Is sure is!!! 'Junkin' is fun, but seeing what your treasures look like after a bath is almost as exciting as the hunt! Could you have pictured such a nice looking vacuum when I first saw it? I feel like I have just won a small lottery!