Thread Number: 45682  /  Tag: Recent Vacuum Cleaners from past 20 years
Dirt Devil FeatherLite bagged uprights— direct air models VS bypass **HELP NEEDED** 		[Down to Last]

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Post# 472351   7/12/2024 at 17:09 by AerusLux99 (New Brunswick, Canada )        

Hi guys! I have had this question for quite a while but was never quite sure if I’d just go ahead and try to do the motor swap/repair or ask if it would even work at all first…

I have a 2001 Dirt Devil FeatherLite Plus and I’ve always loved the sage green color. The thing has always been as loud (or louder) than a shop vac, but having owned other FeatherLite’s (a black and a colonial blue one), I knew it was normal. Recently however, the fan on it has been vibrating the entire machine and making a god awful noise, like a tornado siren. The machine has had the fan replaced before (not by me) but I think that’s pretty good for a $40-50 vacuum with heavy use that’s over 20 years old to only need one repair. The only annoying thing (aside from the noise) is that you absolutely MUST remember to use ONLY the genuine Dirt Devil “micro-fresh” bags, otherwise you’ll be dusting the entire house after you finish vacuuming. And because of the crappy automatic height adjust, you should always have a few replacement belts on hand if you plan to use it on high-pile carpets often.

Anyways, on to my question. I also have a 2012 Dirt Devil FeatherLite in red. I’m not a fan of the styling, and I don’t *love* red, so I’m thinking since the fan is broken on my sage green model, I might just tear apart this machine and put the almost never used motor in with it, just transfer the entire assembly, that way I can also have a headlight. Now, if you know anything about the bagged upright FeatherLite’s, you’d know that sometime between 2002-2007, there was a switch from them using a direct-air design to bypass air. Where there was a hose that needed to be attached to the power head/brush roll in order to provide suction, and the hose could be removed for above the floor cleaning. With the older direct-air models, you needed to insert the hose into the power head to get suction to the hose.

Through that time of approximately 2002-2007, models like mine had upgrades like the addition of a headlight, and the motors looked EXACTLY the same in shape, to the ones used in the later bypass-air models. I’ll post pictures so you can see what I’m talking about. My question is, if I changed the motor assembly (the entire black housing) out of the newer style red bypass-air model into my older style direct-air model, are they compatible?

In the pictures you will see my model, which is an early FeatherLite model. You’ll see it has no headlight, and is set up direct-air so as not to require a hose to provide suction to the power head.

In the next picture you’ll see the model above mine, with the same direct-air design, but with the addition of a headlight. This motor assembly is exactly the same shape, to a T, as the later motors used in the bypass-air models like my red 2012 model.

Finally you’ll see the exact same motor, but in the bypass-air setup model. So I’m wondering, is the configuration of the motor assembly itself any different from the direct-air to the bypass-air. Or is it just the fact that the suction is routed another way, via the body of the vacuum, and no difference at all was made to the motors themselves when they made the switch from direct to bypass? I hope this makes sense. Any help would be appreciated! I’d like to know for the repair, but also just curious in general if there were any changes made when the bypass-air design was introduced. Thanks!

Post# 472353 , Reply# 1   7/12/2024 at 18:48 by AerusLux99 (New Brunswick, Canada )        
As you can see

 My model (direct-air, no headlight) and the other direct-air model in sage green have a different motor housing/assembly, the one with the headlight has an identical motor housing to my red bypass-air model.

  Photos...       <              >      Photo 1 of 5         View Full Size
Post# 472370 , Reply# 2   7/14/2024 at 15:23 by Human (Pines of Carolina)        

human's profile picture
I don't have a direct answer to your question, but I have a relevant experience with motor swaps. A few years ago, I got hold of an Electrolux PN4 power nozzle with a frozen up motor, and being the obsessive compulsive person that I am, that simply wouldn't do, so I found a motor from a newer power nozzle on eBay that wasn't too expensive. When it arrived, I found that it physically fit, but the anchor points on the back half of the motor didn't match those on the chassis of the power nozzle. Undaunted, I ended up taking both motors apart and swapping the back half of the frozen up PN4 motor onto the newer one to create what I needed, and amazingly, it worked. The moral to this story, to the extent that there is one, is once you get both machines torn down, examine the two motors side by side. If they're different, you may be able to swap case components between them to make it work. I'm not a Dirt Devil expert, and I make no guarantees, just an observation based on experience.


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