Well just when I think I've seen every vacuum design ever built, I came across these ones. Does anyone know if the filters for those are still available? These are a really really poor design for a vac, but the place I was at has about 8 of them.
Specialty Equipment vacuums ?
- Thread starter mac
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mjwalsh
6 bay SS w/laundromat
Mac,
Not sure if this helps but back in the early '80s we got our 1st Vac from Specialty Equipment (Mpls). It was a 3 motor Monorail Brand. After that Specialty sold us stainless steel trusty 4 filter bag 2 motor DOYLE VACUUMS that had stainless steel domes. I would assume that Doyle still sells the filter bags or they are somewhat standard???
Mike
Not sure if this helps but back in the early '80s we got our 1st Vac from Specialty Equipment (Mpls). It was a 3 motor Monorail Brand. After that Specialty sold us stainless steel trusty 4 filter bag 2 motor DOYLE VACUUMS that had stainless steel domes. I would assume that Doyle still sells the filter bags or they are somewhat standard???
Mike
mjwalsh
6 bay SS w/laundromat
Mac,
Maybe there is another vacuum manufacturer that Specialty Equipment branded as their own. Maybe a picture of the filter bags mounted possibly could help someone on the forum to identify the rogue design?
Mike
I have never seen vacs like these. There is just one large motor under the dome. The entire top of the canister comes off after you release a large band clamp that connects the top piece to the canister. There is only one filter inside attached to the top piece. Forgot to take a picture. To me this is really a poor design as the one filter there has maybe 1/4 of the filtering area of normal vacs. And it always so nice to see Mep's snarky responses. I have to wonder how he is able to spend so much time on this site if he is such a wonderful tech.
tdlconceptsllc
Well-known member
Sounds like to me there identical to old southern pride vacuums with the band & one big motor and the filter is very shallow and the corners get sucked up in there when dirty. Last time I bought some bags was years ago from Carolina pride my uncle still has a few in use. I got 10 old ones in the shed.
mjwalsh
6 bay SS w/laundromat
Mac,
Do you have any idea how old the vacs are?
Originally we had a 1968 Cook Coin Op Vac. that had a single bag. As a project I actually used the housing of a 30# dryer & somewhat copied the Cook design internally with an internal canister ( old top cut off 15 gallon metal barrel) Because I used a thin flat piece of stainless that was flexible ... its sealing flat surface to the motor actually worked better than the Cook vacuum. That was back in the day when I was in my late teens or 20 or so & there was mostly just raw material to work with. It might have been a blessing in disguise ... buying me time until better designed vacs were available.
Maybe we should have a old timers' adventures with older car wash equipment (workarounds?) reminiscing section ... naw ... none of us are that old...
Mike
I.B. Washincars
Car Washer Emeritus
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I’m old enough to have had high pressure pumps with grease fittings.
JGinther
Zip-tie engineer
I think you answered your own question! Some things never change.... There's a whole lot of new crap out there now to replace it with. Obsolescence is built in. And company survivorship is never guaranteed. So, the risk is larger than the price tag on new replacement stuff. Have you heard of California's 'right to repair' law with emissions and John Deere? And Mazda is making a subscription model with cars now? Best plan might be to make old crap better than new and keep it simple so you can have some control over the future...
Randy you are 100% right. In this case a new owner has taken possession of an old wash. There are 10 of these things at the wash, which was run down when he got it. I'm trying to get some money flowing for him before I tell him about the 20K he needs to replace them all.
MEP001
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Earl Weiss
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