Vacuum Cleaners Discussions

I'm not a Kirby Mechanic but I have a Tranny out of a G6 and was wondering what the "Y" shaped armature is? It doesn't seem to match up with anything. I pulled the tranny out without taking off too much but...putting it back in seems it might take some trial & error. Do I haver to disassemble the upper housing or just fiddle with it. Any info would help thanks. Lucky

mole wrote:

MOLE, HARDSELL:

That's an offer I can't refuse [to ignore]!  I don't have the experience MOLE has with KIRBY, but.....I always felt that the Achilles heel of the Kirby vacuum, despite it's ironclad form and substance, is the handle fork/bail. 

Carmine D.

Hi Carmine, the bail failures on kirbys are minimal in contrast to the hoover convertible,how many bails did you replace because of breakage on the left hand side of the fork where the casting got thin and broke at the same spot?I use dto do do at least 10 a week in the old days,it seems like every uprights weak spots at the pivot point between the handle and the base of the machine.It seemed that the older kirbys without the transmissin wre more prone to breakage that the G series uprights.

I see a lot of handle grip breakage on these machines than bail fork failures.The harder people are on the vacuum the more stuff they can break, most repairs come under misuse and abuse,than just parts wearing out.

H.S. i dont agree with you about the kirby on bare floors,these machine really do quite well on bare floor surfaces, I agree about the attachment use though they really need on board attachments,but would have to redesign the whole system from front to back. Dont think thats ever going to happen...........

MOLE

mole wrote:

Hello MOLE:

HOOVER Convertibles were the worse.  People did not carry the vacuum by using the grip under the bail.  Instead they carried from the top handle grip.  This worsened the problem for bail and handle release failures.  Overfilling the bag contributed to bail/handle release breakage too.

Consumer Reports rates Kirby Sentria "Excellent" on barefloors just as it does dyson and ORECK.   I would agree on all accounts with CR and you.  Seems HS is the minority view and disagrees with CR on its ratings on barefloors for ORECK and Sentria.  But agrees with CR on dyson's rating on barefloors.   Have to wonder who is right/wrong.

Carmine D.