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Author Topic: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb  (Read 10245 times)

Offline beko1987

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Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« on: October 01, 2018, 10:42:26 pm »
I think we are long overdue another refurb thread on a machine nobody cares about arent we! So, as everyone is in bed and I'm not feeling shattered for the first time in forever, let's see how far we get!

I got this from the car boot utterly ages ago

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And Amy soon had it pressed into daily service for a good year, where it was pretty fine actually, if not VERY clunky. But then I got the Beko which is better in every way, so it was time to get it cleaned up and ready for sale.



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We'll take the bin and floor head off for this first bit

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And undo this large screw here

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Forgive the dampness, it got left out in the rain the day before!

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The main handle pulls off the body, and the nut that goes with the bolt can be retrived

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All the many screws that hold the shell together can come off now

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Out comes the large battery

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And we can start to pick apart the wiring, starting with the lower body connections

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #1 on: October 01, 2018, 10:49:24 pm »
I should have posted earlier that the filter got lobbed in the washing machine at some point too, here it is before (we cleaned it quite regularly as it got filthy alot)

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Back to wiring, the DC jack gets unscrewed from the chassis

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Which fully separates the two halves of the casing. Then the lower PCB can be removed

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Then the handle grip slides out

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Revealing the screw that holds the top PCB/On/off switch in place

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That removes all the wiring from the top part

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The slider controls are held in with this screw

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2018, 10:55:53 pm »
Out they come

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The 'Booster' (full power) LED Light lens pops out, it's not a button which people who used it thought it was!

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And the top half is done! Time to move down to the motor section now!

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The shell is held together at the bottom by this bracket and it's 4 screws.

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Which slides out when undone

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This rubber seal comes out from inside, and is what seals the brush head onto the suction path

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Moar screws removed!

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And the power house is revealed! (and falls out a bit too as the securing screws go removed possibly a step too early

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Back down below, behind there the first thing we removed sits, this spring fell out

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #3 on: October 01, 2018, 11:01:37 pm »
Then this piece here unclips from above that

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This is actually the bin removal mechanism, you push down onto the spring which unlatches the top, then when you fit the bin that same spring keeps the bin tight against the top mating face.

These wires are for the powerhead motor

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And simply clip up the back of the chassis. Next out is this terminal block

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This plastic pad holds the bracket straight against the chassis face (I presume, seemed a tad pointless TBH)

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I had to remove one more thing before getting the rest of the wiring out, the exhaust vent! This plastic cap holds the foam on

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Then the outer trim piece pops out

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Then, finally, the screw can be got at!

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Now that the motor is fully free, we can see what it is! Ah! Dr. Johnson I presume?

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Offline beko1987

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #4 on: October 01, 2018, 11:05:04 pm »
The fancase seal is held on with this bracket

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The rubber peels off the plastic mount

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Lots of sand was present between the two layers

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I spied more screws

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So removed them to see what happened

Ah! a fan

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It seemed rude not to remove the fan as we were here

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Oh look, 2 more screws!

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That had the motor stripped right off the fancase housing

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Offline beko1987

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #5 on: October 01, 2018, 11:11:00 pm »
Now onto the bin. Get your flaps out

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The shroud lifts out of the top, the filter sits above this

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Looking at this now, that filter picture I posted earlier is properly out of cannon and I'm not sure where that came from as this is the filter here too!

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It would have got vacuumed off and lobbed through the washing machine with the next load of black, it's just a big chunk of foam really! Shows how bad it gets after a few weeks of use though

This clip and it's tiny conical spring holds the bottom flap in place

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The flap is held in with a bar that taps through

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The flap seal is glued in place so I left that and started on the floor head. The triangular head wasn't really much use bar concentrating the suction to the tip to pick up cheerio's etc, it didn't add much to the cleaning experience

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I started at the top

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But that didnt do much once removed

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So down we go, passing this on the way

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Offline beko1987

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #6 on: October 01, 2018, 11:17:30 pm »
This demonstrates the final MASSIVE PITFALL of this cleaner, the sodding brushroll gets clogged with hair and you have that tiny gap to cut it all out! It was overdue I think

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Whilst flipping it upside down, I worked out that the bracket we removed is for, it holds the lock part in place! This centres and locks the head and the machine so it stands up

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Some screws remove the top part of the housing, and reveals the next run of wires

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With all the underneath screws removed, the outer bumper comes off

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As does the inner cover

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Ickle belt

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The two front wheels pop out

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Then with many screws, the suction channel unscrews. This makes suction come out of both holes, the idea being that the front channels pick up the large debris, and the brushroll sweeps up the rest and it did work rather well I have to say, it's not a bad cleaner by any means

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Offline beko1987

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #7 on: October 01, 2018, 11:21:58 pm »
This part does the diverting

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And pulls out of the middle

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All the screws holding the clear part down are removed and up it comes

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Revealing the brushroll

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The neck lifts out now

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The internal hose twists off the neck

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Sadly, the ends of the wires were probably fitted after the wires were pushed through, so snip snip

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and out the came! Out also came the brushroll

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The motor is held in with 2 screws

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #8 on: October 01, 2018, 11:25:37 pm »
Another Johnson

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I de-haired the brushroll and removed the one end cap that would

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DONE!

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There was a fair amount of screws

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And a fair amount of washing was done, then polishing, then it's ready to reassemble

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One clean brushroll!

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Brushroll motor re-fitted

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Brushroll refitted

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Internal hose is screwed onto the neck

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #9 on: October 01, 2018, 11:30:43 pm »
And with the wiring poked through, it drops into place on the lower chassis

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Brushroll housing back on

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Diversion piece fitted

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And the suction tube can be screwed into place

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These two springs help the head unlock when pushed down with one's foot

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Wheels back on

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Top cover on

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and the outer cover on!

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I fed the terminals down into the head whilst the wires were still cut

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #10 on: October 01, 2018, 11:34:49 pm »
2 small crimps later and you'd never know! (unless you took the cover off and looked obviously)

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This part is done

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Time to fit the now cleaned bottom flap

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Sadly one of the hinge sides cracked off whilst doing this, but it glued back on OK, and TBH even with it off it was OK

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Flap latch back on

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The washed filter joins the inner shroud/cyclone in reassembly

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And the bin is done!

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Motor now! The fan assembly is built back up. No idea who thought threadlock was a good idea, it's hardly a fast spinning motor  :))

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Fan 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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #11 on: October 01, 2018, 11:38:50 pm »
Rubber seal fits back into the outer shell minus the sand

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Retaining bracket in place

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Then the top wiring is fitted, then the outer trim piece

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Diffuser back in

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Wiring block in

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We can run the wires down

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And re-assembly the bin latch mechanism

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Refit the spring to the floorhead holder

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Then bolt the casing back on and fit the bottom trim part/floor head latch bracket

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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: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2018, 11:42:03 pm »
On the top handle, the on off slider is screwed in

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All the wires run and PCB's placed

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Handle grip inserted

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Batteries refitted

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And by jolly jove it was done!





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It sold fairly easily, although I only asked £20 for it, but that's not bad for what cost me £4 originally, and that we had a years use out of! And their not too bad. Their not great, but a cheap one would be a fine tool to use!
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 MVacs

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2018, 02:12:34 pm »
Queer looking thing aren't they? I thought it was a steamer at first glance.

Offline ryevac

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Re: Rowenta Air Force - Stripdown and refurb
« Reply #14 on: October 02, 2018, 02:17:05 pm »
Yes that was my thought, them horrible steam cleaners (that last 13 months).

It is an ugly thing, but if it does the job...
The only way to fail is not to try.

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