This all started by reading this post on Vacuumland -
http://www.vacuumland.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?29901_66I've wanted a Panasonic Icon for ages, I remember them growing up an Ibasiac (on youtube) has done a wonderful demo of his, and they look really good. The one in the link above was in Bicester, and 99p. I'm 15 mins away from Bicester. Can you guess what happened next?
Of course you can, otherwise why would I be writing this post?
As mentioned in the ebay listing, and touched upon in the quite bitchy forum post, it had a full bag. I don't have any spare bags for it, but as luck would have it, there was a new pack of bags being sold not 18 miles away on a gumtree listing in Oxford, so I popped up the A34 and got those
They came with a free Sanyo SC-8AN vacuum cleaner too!
, the whole lot cost £3, which is less than a genuine box of bags goes for on ebay anyway...
Poor photo, apologies
I had a look at the Icons dustbag
Which was a touch full, although there was some room left
The pre motor filter was a bit dirty though
So I bashed it out on the rug, removing a crayon in the process
Took a nice new bag
fitted it
and had a go
It beats Dyson by many years with having a motor driven brushroll, and my god it's agressive! Such a nice cleaner to use!
I used it here and there for a bit, filling the bag with deep down grit from the carpets. Very good.
Then I put the very very filthy post motor filter in the washing machine, along with a load of other filters, hoses and it's pre motor filter. That went well*
The filter is made of tissue paper, which didn't like being submerged in 80 degree water for 3 hours being tossed about a bit... Never fear though, I had a plan
Before that, however, I stripped it down one sunny saturday morning whilst watching Swashbuckle with Eva...
Bag door off
The 1/4 full bag
The post motor filter housing comes off
The rest of the front trim is held on with a screw
There seemed to be an impact mark on the bag door, although it wasn't actually broken
The bag door release, however was not so easy to get out, and I left it alone for fear of damage. Bags are the only thing you can buy for this machine now, EVERYTHING else is long obselete!
The bag full indicator was a bit dusty
So out it came
and apart it came
Out with the bag
Extension tube and crevice tool come off
Dusting brush off
Sadly the Upholstry tool is missing. One may turn up one day
There is a screw lurking behind the dusting brush
Which releases the incredibly bulky handle
Handle off, the housing that the hose clips into can be removed with 5 screws
Damn, there's no way that hose is coming out
Sadly, the hose has been crushed at some point
but it's not torn, so could be worse
The 2 circuit boards can be seen now
the front slider trim pops off a clip at the bottom
The 2 boards connect up to each other. One controls on/off and power, which then feeds into the other board
I hope that capacitor never goes
pop BOOM
Aha!
Snip
Wires from the motor, brushroll and cord reel now
and she is free
Moving down, the hose port unscrews from the machine and twists off the little hose
The RH wheel unscrews
Revealing a cover
The other wheel comes off in the same way
This is the damage mentioned on the original listing, the housing for one of the rear wheels has snapped, so I could pull the wheel out very easily
Will glue that up when its washed!
On the other side, the cover comes off and reveals 3 plugs
The brushroll on/off switch cover pops off too
Reference shot as at this stage I was starting to worry about complications!
red/black to red/black
yellow plug to yellow plug and incase the spanish got confused putting it together the white plug to yellow plug was already coloured in!
Wires unplugged, it seems the next thing to do is unscrew all the screws holding the baseplate on, which had 2 either side of the pivot rings too. Once off, the whole base plate lifts off, leaving everything sitting in the blue cover
The base plate assembly
I think there's more damage too, both sides look like there should be a bit of plastic around each lug of the wheel too, but there isnt
I pulled the broken peice off fully so I could clean the joint up, it was hanging in by a tiny peice anyway
The other rear wheel pops out with a gentle lever from a flatblade, as I presume it should do
The chamber that holds the brushroll motor is connected to the main airflow path with a little filter
Some felt seals were fitted to the brushroll holders too
The brushroll switches can be lifted out of the baseplate
The lever that turns the brushroll off when upright, and on when reclined lifts out, and the spring can be removed
the switch clips in behind that
The 2 soleplate wheels flick out
as does the little brush that makes up for the belt guard being in the way (I dont recall there being a massive line of shame on Ibasiacs demo, will have to check that)
The rest of the internal hose lifts off the baseplate now
The power wires for the brushroll motor, and the thermal cutout are routed very neatly as so
Once un-routed the brushroll lifts out
It's massive! Heavy too, a proper brushroll!
The motor end is protected by a rubber cover
Which houses the thermal cutout, which I presume then trips the reset switch
The flash ruins it somewhat but this is a screw at the end of the brushroll!
Once removed the end row of brushes and the brushroll holder part come off the end
The bearing slides off with the bearing puller
and the end cage pulls off the brushroll housing
On the other side, the brushroll motor and associated withdraws from the brushroll shell.
me it's big and heavy, take note Dyson, this is a proper brushroll motor, none of your crappy little things!
Few bits of string to clean off, but otherwise very clean!
Onto the beast now!
The end cooling fan is held on with a nut, then a washer sits under it. All the below comes off with it
The cog assembly is amazing!
One came out with the shank, the other two came off with the circlip removed. The rubber cover for this part slides off too
and all went into a pot so I didnt get grease on the rug (again...
)
You cant see it in the picture, but hidden under here are 3 screws
Which leaves the motor, which doesnt really come apart any more, nor does it need to! It runs fine
Back to some plastics now, and the top of the brushroll housing
A screw at the back releases the see through part
The reclining latch is fixed onto the brushroll cover
This just pulls off, remembering to not loose the tiny spring contained within
2 more felt seals lurking under here
There is a little filter here too, well was. No way was I removing those clips, and the foam was perished anyway so I pulled it out with some needlenose pliers
The foam looked like this, good riddance to it!
The bumper slides off theb rushroll housing now
Brushroll assembly done, it's back onto the main housing now
Some screws remove the cover that goes over the whole thing
Reference shot of the cord reel wiring. The black cable is the one we snipped earlier, took me a while to work that one out...
No way was I having this apart, which is a shame as it didnt work very well
So I pulled 4 length of cord off 'properly', then wound it back on again, another 4 lengths pulled off, and wound back on again, then 2 pulled off and wound back on again and the action seems much better. I left it at that! No way will I ever get another one if I break it
The rewind pedal and mechanism pops off the chassis too
These small peices hide the wires as they run up the chassis
Then the motor can be lifted out
The utterly filthy sound deadening removed
The cables are stuck to the top motor rubber
Another thermal cutout, and all the motor wires run alongside like so
I marked up one of the wires for re-assembly
and removed all the wires so they could be cleaned
The fancase seal came off, but apart from that I left the motor alone, it was ok, the fan was clean and I doubt I could improve it at all
This motor housing seal fell out on me
So I removed that, but left all the others in place
The motor chamber diffuser was utterly perished, and what was left fell out with a tap
Release valve was sat in the back of the bag chamber
And the bit of plastic that stops the bag door being able to be closed without a bag pops out of its 2 pivot lugs
There is a seal around the edge of the bag door, this pulled out
And she is stripped! This took all afternoon, was certainly up in the top 5 most involved teardowns I've done!
Non washables
Greasy bits
The S5 took care of the mess
Perhaps a little too well, as I'd missed the parts box with the clip that holds the upholstry tool on, and up the turbo brush it went. Had to sacrifice the half full bag in the S5 and retrieve it!
Washables
Those air fresheners STINK. SWMBO bought it, and put it outside an hour later. You could taste it as you walked in the gate. I threw it in the bin at the weekend, the bin smells lovely now...
I soaked the brushroll cogs in some brake cleaner to get the old grease off
Took 4 goes, as it kept evaporating off in the warmth we had that weekend!
More soon...