I changed the #Brushes on our Central Vacuum. See how I did it.

This morning I repaired our Central Vac. It broke down a few days age. When I took it apart, I discovered the brushes were worn out. They lasted a long time; 23 years to be exact. Much longer than they are supposed to last.

To replace the brushes was a difficult job, because of the location of the machine. I can’t even blame anyone, because I initially installed the unit myself when we built the house. It was located in the darkest corner of the storage room under the stairs. Not much room to work in, either.

Of course, when an appliance stops working you never know what caused it to break down. As a retired Electrician, I sort of had an idea it might be the brushes. So I took the machine apart. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds. Every machine is different. I located the brushes, even managed to expose that part of the motor, after prying all over it with a screw driver. They give you very little room. Everything is tight. The armature looked okay, not pitted or damaged, so I was fairly certain I could fix the motor by replacing the brushes.  The brushes are held down by clips. I got the brushes free, but then I had no idea how to disconnect the wires, and I didn’t want to break anything by applying too much force.

I finally took to the internet. It is amazing what you can find on the internet. After looking at a few videos on U-Tube, I actually did find one that showed the same motor as the one in my machine. By the way, our Central Vacuum is a Thoro-Vac, but I didn’t find anything useful under that brand.

The video was short, but it showed how to take the brushes out, how to disconnect them and how to put the new ones back again. I would have never known that the connection to the brush is a small blade that needs to be pushed into a slot between the housing and the brushes. But knowing this didn’t make the job easy. Because of the little room in the machine and the short wires it took a lot of sweat and cursing to pull the blades from the old brushes.

Anyway, I drove to a dealer with the old brushes and bought new ones. $24.00 for the pair. So today, I installed them into the motor. Thanks to the video it didn’t take too long. Again, because of the lack of space and the short wires it took me a while to push those little blades into the casing of the brushes, but with a pair of pliers and force I managed.

What as lovely sound when I plugged in the cord and switched on the machine. It didn’t even matter that I was in close proximity to the motor. It was like loud music in my ears. My ears are ringing anyway most of the time.

Here is a picture of the old brushes. See how they are worn down? The carbon has to stick out over an inch on good brushes.

One thing is for sure: I saved myself a lot of money by doing this job myself. Tradesmen charge a lot for these service calls, if you actually find one who still does service calls. Some of them are like doctors these days. You have to go to them.

 This is the link to the video I found: How to replace the brushes on a Non-Blue Dot Motor.

Of course, in the video it looks easy, because they took the motor out of the machine. I didn't have the luxury of all that space to work with.