A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went thrifting. Afterwords was a stop at the local Kirby dealer. I hauled home alot of machines that day and the cream of the crop were a very nice Hoover Guardsman with the paper bag setup, along with a nice metal based Eureka, a Dial-A-Matic and a Kirby Omega with the original bag. The Guardsman and Eureka were trade-ins (see the tags on them)and the other two were from Salvation Army Along with the model 86 Constellation.

I'm so glad I got an original bag for an Omega, now I can finish restoring my mom's Omega. She had it serviced a while bag and they put a Sanitronic bag on it. So now it'll look like new again. As for the Kirby pictured, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the rest of it. Maybe put the Sanitronic bag on it and use it as a daily driver.

Joe

That Guardsman!!- what was it traded in for??

Seamus

What is that black on the handle? doe the powerdrive work? If you decide to sell any of thoes hoovers please e-mail me!

Andy Beres

and the guardsman has its original lens too!!

An unrestored machine of course.

Hood Shot

Bag Shot, seems in pretty nice shape

Is what's on the DAM's handle. The usual cord being pulled from the handle and taped back. Sometimes an easy fix, otherwise a new cord is needed. Nothing is for sale yet.

Joe

Seamus, I'm thinking it was traded on a new Sentria. I never discussed that, I just took it and went....The tag is dated August '06 so that's how I figured a Sentria.

On a side note the Kirby guy tried to get me to take an 8 month old Dyson Animal that was traded on a new Kirby. This could be a whole other discussion on the other board. I will say this, that for someone to trade in a nearly new $500 vac for a Kirby must have been very dissatisfied with the Dyson. That's all I'll say about that. Back to the Guardsman, it now has a good home.

Joe

that service sticker could not be in a ruder spot. if i saw a tech applying a sticker like that on my cleaner i would yell STOP! very nice eureka and guardsman

Great finds, Joe! I agree, the Guardsman has got to be the cream of the crop, with the Kirby pulling a close second. Gotta love that fire engine red!
Jeff

Joe...these are some great finds...I know that you have been looking for that Kirby for a long time now...I have to say that my favorite is that Guardsman...that one is the later version in the 1980's and uses the front conversion...note the missing medallion on this model. I am looking for the rear conversion model from 1975...pictures Jeff P.???? Thanks for the pics Joe!

--Tom

Looks like it will clean up nice Joe, Thats a U4313 right? It doesen't have the medallion on it...

Jeff, yes its a U4313. Two speed motor with the speed switch in the handle bail. It will clean up nice. Of course someone put a Eureka F&G bag in it and it was plugged all the way to the fan. Quite a mess. I cleaned that out and its breathing well now.

As far as dealer stickers go, I usually like to leave them on if I can. Especially the ones on vacs I get from other areas. Jeff has sent me some vacuums that have Chicago dealer stickers on them and the ones I pick up on my visits to North Canton will usually get the stickers left on. The one on this Guardsman will probably go as its in the way of polishing up the base. The sticker is from the Buffalo area Hoover dealer.

Joe

I leave them on, it adds character, and tells a little something about the cleaner.
As david said though, placement is everything, and that sticker on the Guardsman would have to go!
Joe that cleaner should use type A bags, not F & G.
The U4313 was the last Guardsman in that style, coming out about 1981-82 and running til about 1987. You could buy them new in 1986 for $159 from the Hoover stores.
Is that Omega bag the strip-y one? I can't tell from the picture

Tom,
I'll post the pics you requested tonight.

This machine is set up for "C" bags. If its supposed to be "A", then someone modified it. If they never had the "C" bags, then I'll have to put it back to using "A" bags. Tom had mentioned that "C" bags were used. Maybe over time in the run things were changed over to using "A". I'll admit that this is the first Guardsman I've seen that uses paper bags. I always thought they were a cloth dump bag model.

The Kirby bag has a textured stripe-y pattern. I've seen Omegas with a gold colored bag too. I thought the gold was a Classic I bag with an Omega patch.

Joe

That would not have worked very well, especially since C bags had a tendency to explode, especially with the power of the High performance motor, and not being somewhat "restrained" inside the large vinyl bag.
Mike Rogers told me of a dealer he knew somewhere in Chicago who re-fitted Guardsmans with bottom fill tubes, but he instead used the Handisac/Type W bags in them, which are larger than a C bag, don't clog, and filter ok too.
In the "red" series Guardsmans the only one I know of with the cloth bag was the first one U70**...(I forget the model #) The next model was U4125 and it is identical to your machine save for having as medallion. Th U4313 replaced the 4125. To the best of my knowledge the U4125 and U4313 were type A bag machines...

That's probably why the F&G bag was in there. Maybe a vac shop switched the machine to "C" bags, (cheaper bags than the "A"s) they exploded and the customer was told to use F&G's. I have "A" bag tubes to convert it back. When I go thru it for restoration, that's what I'll do.

In general, it has always amazed me, the hack jobs that some shops do to vacuums. That could be a whole other thread for discussion.

Thanks,
Joe

cant stop wondering about the bag setup. the outer bag and general condition suggest the machine is too new and well preserved to warrant replacement of the fill tube/bellows. is it too late to ask for pics of the fill tube/bellows it came with?

I once saw this cool one at a Rite Aid in Bellmawr.