Central onboard vacuum cleaner

[Chuckles]

Hi all,

We have just imported to the UK, our first - and hopefully only - 1982/3 Airstream 310 Classic Motor Home. Apart from wandering in the wilderness looking to see what we have, our interest has been drawn to the Central Vacuum Cleaner unit.

We have most of the tools apart from possibly some sort of an adaptor from hose to the rigid pipe bits, but our surprise was that after a few minutes use, it stopped!

Deciding on the best approach is attack; I removed the base of the bathroom cabinet and found what I believe is the entire unit. I say this because it is very small, with only the one air outlet under the cabinet floor, that must some how use the bag; and on this I find a red cap sealing the outlet! So now I realise the reason it stopped is probably due to overheat/overload because the air cannot escape. We found two bags (New) and then the queries start. How does One fit the bag?

There must be some adaptor - holder or something that goes on the end of the outlet to hold the bag in place... the outlet is a very short piece of 1.1/2” grey pipe. Any ideas?

The writing on the motor section is a very poor script but looks like "Terio Campbill". 'T's, 'B's and 'R's could be anything! The model and serial numbers are IARV 32/120140.

As I said it is a small unit, with what looks like a receiving plenum/centrifuge call it what you will, in-between the part the hose plugs into, and what would appear the part where a bag fits. Under that must be the motor and some sort of housing that has many ventilation holes. There are no clips or quick release parts to facilitate changing or even securing a bag.

If any one recognises this very vague description, and can identify it and indeed can send a photo and better still a copy of the handbook/manual I, (I mean Mary, my wife ) would be eternally grateful.
Chuck
Dorset UK

[guy99]

Not sure about your unit but the central vac that came in our 1984 310 Limited Motorhome was supposed to have a filter (bag) holder which was connected to the suction hose. Based on pictures this thing looked sort of like a flying saucer about a foot across. Thus the dirt collected was supposed to be filtered out before it got to the motor. The filter holder on ours was missing so I ended up replacing the entire vacuum.

[Chuckles]

Interesting.... and... amusing!

We have no flying saucer, infact the whole thing is less than the overall size of a very small sized shoe box!

Certainly no filters.

Thanks for that, but I hope not to replace the unit because it does suck... Very well indeed!

Chuck

[Chuckles]

Actually, in hind site that makes sense of it all.

It was a devils own job to access the vacuum in the cupboard, and even with that red plug in it; it was sucking extremely well.

It will also account for the mismatch between the hoses and applicators.....

.....

Anyone have a flying saucer they don’t want???

Eh!.... Chaps?

[guy99]

Yeah, ours really sucked too. But in the brief time we operated it without a filter is sure jammed lots of stuff into the motor. I had no luck finding a flying saucer. I thought about making a "filter canister" to put in lline but in the end we got in a hurry and decided to buy new.

In any case having the built-in vacuum is very handy so it is worth some effort to get your working.

[Chuckles]

It will certainly keep the “Little Lady” happy if she has the vac at her finger-tips (just loves cleaning!)

This a good site so hopefully if I post a request for such a unit in the 'wanted’ I might just get lucky....

Many thanks for your reply it helped enormously.
Regards
Chuck