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Author Topic: Vax W87 Dual V Advance Reach carpet washer - Repair then maybe refurb  (Read 6537 times)

Offline beko1987

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A while ago, we got a nice massive slab of new cream carpet for free, and laid it down in the front room to stop the boy smacking his head on the laminate so much as he learned to walk

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All was ace for about 2 weeks. Then something got spilt, shoes were forgotten about and, more catastrophically when I stripped down my Hoover Turbomaster, oily crap got on it and then walked about...

So, we needed a shampooer. We have the Aquamaster, but tbh it wouldn't do a great job, we needed something with some agitation behind it. So, my usual skinflint ebay search led me to find this

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Of course, I like a challenge, and it was a good price, cheap enough that I could break it for spares and make many times what it cost. So, £5 and a drive at lunchtime later got me this



I've yet to do a before video, so I'll pop that in here when I do that, but for now, I needed to confirm what the issue actually was. Many other people had their money on the motor being scrap, but, with optimism in the air, I got it apart

(I'll do more of a full how to if it would be handy? There's naff all info on these on the net, and Vax didn't want to know)

First, the water tanks come off, the sucky head bit comes off, the spinscrub brushes unscrews, then the hood unscrews



This sprung bar at the front is the actuator switch for the brushes, when the machine is reclined they turn on (hopefully, not actually tried them yet  :snivel:) then when upright they turn off



Once the rod is removed this part is left which I think does the actual turning on and off



With that removed, the spinscrub motor unit unscrews to leave this



To the right of this picture, the 'turbo max extract setting' lever thing has to be moved out of the way to get at a screw. Once moved, all the motor housing screws can be undone



So, cheap chinese motor (that Vax don't sell on it's own). It's blown, so I thought I would have the armature out to see if it could be fixed



No actual damage, just excessive carbon wear. The lady said she had only used it once or twice (although looking at the state of the thing she has really dirty carpets)

This is where we are now



The carbons had a chipped edge on each one



I cleaned up the comm



This is the motor. A GS8222. Googling revealed I could buy 50,000 of them for about £3 a unit, but not on their own. So I lobbed it all back together and gave it a try, and nothing, still bubbling and blown

It has also been wet it seems



So, it went into the shed whilst I pondered its future. Qtex list the motor as a special order spare, and Stu informed me that could be a 2 week to 2 year delay, depending on when they get an order in. So, some ebay browsing happened, and on page 27 of 'Vax Motor' results, I found this

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which looked identical enough to be worth a shot. It turned up today, and is a GS8222! Made by a different company, with different numbers on the serial sticker, but it look identical enough to get excited about!

I've not fitted it yet, will do that tomorrow, but whilst at my mums today I asked if she had any solution I could use to test it, don't want to spend out on it yet. She has a Vax Spring clean horrible thing, and she gave me all of this!



The big 5l bottle is Nuchem I think, that came with my George back in 2006. So that'll all be enough to get started.

I have no idea if it will run tbh, or what caused the old motor to burn out in the first place. Bad motor? Got wet? Crap design by VAX? Overfilled machine? Who knows, we shall find out!

Stay tuned, we'll get the new motor fitted and see what happens. I hope it does work, it seems an OK machine when working

Collector and restorer of vintage vacuums, Dyson Appreciator! Come and see my blog, where I am uploading all my mountains of brochures, manuals and other vacuum cleaner paperwork, and also my youtube channel @beko1987!


Offline Parwaz7862

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Re: Vax W87 Dual V Advance Reach carpet washer - Repair then maybe refurb
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2016, 09:37:58 pm »
Interesting! Fingers crossed it works, TBH I've seen a few different models of Vax washers go wrong (The newer ones) but I don't recall any Bissells going wrong, they should really test their machines properly lol :))

That motor looks similar to the one our old Vax 6140 had, we used it for washing carpets a few times and it didn't blow up but lasted 3 years (Crap build quality)

Offline beko1987

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Re: Vax W87 Dual V Advance Reach carpet washer - Repair then maybe refurb
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2016, 03:09:18 pm »
So, it turns out the motor I bought WAS NOT the same... same model number, different model type.

But, some creativity with the motor rubbers has it fitted, and working fine. I thought the suction was a bit naff initially, but it seems they are all like that sir.

Here I am explaining what I did, and checking the suction, then doing some shampooing!


The spinscrub brushes need to be at least 10x stiffer than they are, their very soft, and it takes a fair few wet passes to get them teasing the pile of the carpet, but it gets there in the end. I've been testing it out by giving my mums front room carpet a well needed shampoo bit by bit at lunchtimes and it's pulling tank after tank of black soup out of her 1970's brown carpet that last saw a good shampoo over 10 years ago when I had a Bissell Proheat thing.

I have also experienced the motor getting wet, but it's the foams fault I think. One corner of the recovery tank is bunded for reasons I have not worked out, and when the foam builds up, eventually it gets so much it starts getting sucked into the motor. This is a combination of the Numatic Prochem I'm using being a bit foamy, but more due to years of mum using antibac spray to clean up after the cats when they had those. I'm not looking forward to our front room carpet as I've used washing up liquid on it...

So it seems to work OK. One day I'll have it apart and show you how the motor works, and I need to have it apart at some point to get the max extract function working properly (the rod isn't back correctly I don't think so the spinscrub brushes never stop), but for £29.99, I'm quite happy with it.
Collector and restorer of vintage vacuums, Dyson Appreciator! Come and see my blog, where I am uploading all my mountains of brochures, manuals and other vacuum cleaner paperwork, and also my youtube channel @beko1987!

Offline Madrat

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Re: Vax W87 Dual V Advance Reach carpet washer - Repair then maybe refurb
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2016, 04:09:10 pm »
In the first picture, it looks like a purple lipped alien  :))


 

 

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