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Author Topic: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide  (Read 47819 times)

Offline beko1987

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Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« on: August 16, 2017, 11:01:46 pm »
At some point in the life of a Gtech Air Ram Mk1, the brushroll will stop spinning, accompanied by a high pitched whining/grinding noise. Fear not, this is a very common issue thanks to a cheap plastic cog being turned by a metal cog. And this thread wil ltell you how to replace it!

YOU WILL NEED:

1 Gtech Air Ram Drive Cog: Drive Cog Shaft Spindle & Bearings For GTECH AirRam DM001 AR01 AR02
A cross head screwdriver.
A T10 Torx screwdriver: T10 Torx Star Screwdriver.
A cold beer for afterwards  :thumbsup:

Optional, but handy are:

A dry brush/paintbrush/your wife's best pastry brush
A Damp cloth
Spray Grease/3 in 1 Oil
A stanley/craft knife/scissors.

HOW TO.

Locate your disgraced Gtech Air Ram



Gather your tools



Wait for the well packaged and speedily delivered envelope from Manchester

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Which will have the cog inside (and other stuff if you ordered enough to take advantage of the free shipping!)

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Observe it's newness and jagged edges

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Remove the dirt bin lid

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Lift out the dirt bin

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Turn the machine over

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And undo the cross head screws holding the end caps on

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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 beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #1 on: August 16, 2017, 11:06:36 pm »
The long screw goes at the rear (it also screws the brushroll housing down) and the short one at the front.

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Remove the end caps. The lift slightly then pull off

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The brass bush may stay on the roller

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Pull it off and pop it back in the end cap

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OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED - Clean the end caps of hair/melted hair as applicable

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Next, pull the brushrolls out of the machine

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OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED - Clean the hair off, use the knife to cut along the brushroll then pull the hair off

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Next, remove the 4 screws that surround the little motor fan window, and the one at the front centre by my finger

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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 beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2017, 11:18:41 pm »
Brushroll serviced, turn the machine back over (still reclined) and remove these two screws at the front

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Then, lift the entire motor unit up and out of the machine as so

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Back underneath, undo the 2 edge screws (not the middle ones as shown, I realized they don't need to come undone!)

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Lift the front part off

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We now have this

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Undo both screws on the rear of the motor unit. The top one is the long one

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Lift the suction ducting off

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Then undo the 2 screws at the front of the black cover

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And lift that off. Lift from the back of the machine, it latches into the cog housing at the front. It takes a bit of persuasion

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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 beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2017, 11:24:24 pm »
You should now see this or similar

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However, because I refurbished this machine prior to taking the photo's for this guide, I can show you it like this!

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Take your brush and clean it all off so you can see the 5 screws (4 on the face, 1 on the side) Remove these screws, and seperate the cog housing

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This is your issue!

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Although again, you will probably be greeted by this

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Either way, Lift up the metal drive cog and pull the ruined plastic cog out

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You can see the difference between the old and new

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Clean all the insides of the cog housing up with the damp cloth and brush. Then, take your new cog and place it in

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 beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #4 on: August 16, 2017, 11:29:41 pm »
Replace the drive cog over the plastic one



Pop a small nugget of lubricant on if you wish, although it will attract the dust more, so maybe don't.

Place the cover back on, making sure to pop the black wire into it's little slot

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Then do up the screws! At this point, feel free to drop the assembly into the machine (the contacts sit below the housing) and turn it on to check operation)

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Job done, pop it back out and fit the black outer cover, remembering to insert the thin end into it's groove first before snapping the back part down

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Refit the suction duct and pop the 2 screws back in (long one at the top/into the black part!)

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Locate the cog end into the brushroll housing front

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Then re-fit the front plate, long screw in the middle and 2 shorter ones at the outer edges

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Refit the motor unit into the machine one last time, and pop the 2 front screws in

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Flip it over and put the 4 bottom screws in

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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 beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #5 on: August 16, 2017, 11:32:55 pm »
Back over again, and insert the brushrolls, then fit the end caps. The end caps only go on one way, as you can see the lugs are different sizes

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Pop the dirt bin back

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Refit the cover

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Then take it for a test drive.

Once it works, bask in your magnificence and pour yourself a well deserved cold drink! I have ale here, but I'm not a sexist chap, so a nice glass of Wine would do the job just as well!

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Congratulations, you have just fixed your Gtech Air Ram. Another servicing tip I have is the 2 filters go very nicely through the washing machine on a normal cycle and come out spotless! Just make sure they are thoroughly dry before using them!

I hope you found this helpful, please comment if you have any issues or questions!

Bye for now!
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: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2017, 12:12:50 am »
Excellent as always.

So compared to a dyson handheld how do these perform?

Offline autovac01

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2017, 12:01:05 pm »
 :bow:
Sam, you should get paid each time someone uses one of your pictorials.

Offline beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2017, 12:06:26 pm »
Stuart should structure the forums like YouTube, 1p per page view! Some of my how to guides have thousand of views!

But I don't do it for the money! Enough perks come my way with parts and favors!
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 britain4

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #9 on: August 17, 2017, 01:32:40 pm »
Excellent as always.

So compared to a dyson handheld how do these perform?

In my experience - absolute rubbish especially on hard floors but that's my personal opinion! Loves flinging dirt around the room and dumping half of what it's "picked up" on the floor when you turn it off. I read somewhere they have 4 air watts of suction so just an expensive carpet sweeper really. I do clean the filters regularly, and I stripped it down for a clean the other month, still exactly the same.

I tested out a V8 with the floor tool and fluffy roller thing the other day and it's hugely better on both carpet and hard floors.

I am using one until I can get a V6 (or V8) so thank yo u for the hugely helpful guide! I'm also going to use the washing machine trick on the filters as they're quite tiresome to get fully clean.

Offline beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #10 on: August 17, 2017, 01:40:56 pm »
I've never used a cordless dyson apart from a dc16, so can't comment too much, but tbh I found the air ram not too bad! OK it had been fully refurbished, and had spotless freshly washed filters but it did a grand job.

Just a shame they seem to unreliable and badly built!


I have the full refurb thread to write up still, it shows what a shocking state the machine got itself into!
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 britain4

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #11 on: August 17, 2017, 02:15:09 pm »
Horses for courses then, best off trying one out if you can really and see what suits you/your floors.. Looking forward to the refurb thread, mine could use a bit of a tidy although it's definitely working as it should.

One thing in its favour is it was bought new when they first came out and takes quite a beating on a regular basis (been used as a "daily" cleaner the whole time) and still works perfectly. The clip holding the filter cover on always breaks but mine has never had the cog issue yet.

Will probably sell it and buy a V6 afterwards, I just can't get on with it at all.

and im not impressed with the handheld one either, Im sure the DC35 I had had better suction.The bin is too easy to knock off too and some of the tools are falling apart.

Both MK1s so I can't comment on any of the new models

Offline beko1987

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #12 on: August 17, 2017, 02:31:17 pm »
I've only used the above for <5 minutes, and did quite like it, but I'm not going to start bleating on about how great they are! I've added wanting one to my radar, but my radar has a £20 limit, so that could take a while!

We do have need for a cordless though, with 2 children Amy is forever pushing the Rowenta cordless I got from the car boot for £5 around to get the bits up, but it's not great (although needs a refurb itself the poor thing). One day I'll upgrade 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 britain4

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2017, 04:23:56 pm »
Sure I've seen some fixer upper DC16s for that sort of money and if they're anything like the 35s that'd be a great bet. The V8 certainly is worlds away from the Gtech on hard floors. Problem is the fluffy brush is about £60 on its own hence I'm scouring eBay for a "cheap" V6 Total clean!

Yes we have a messy dog. Just bought a £20 DC33 in good working order for tough stuff but the cordless one is essential.

Offline MVacs

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Re: Gtech Air Ram Mk1 - Brushroll Cog Replacement How to Guide
« Reply #14 on: August 17, 2017, 05:12:38 pm »
A most superlative guide, as ever.  :bow:

As a reminder: People who imagine their Gtech is still under warranty may find themselves doing this job if Gtech refuses to honour the warranty. Gtech refusing to honour warranty is a known problem as readers can learn from this topic: >>Beware: Gtech Refusing to Honour Their Warranty/Guarantee<<.

 

 

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