[IanB]

I was somewhat into home audio for a while, and I would read about guys who goto yard sales, and this one guy came across someone literally dumping all of their own McIntosh equipment from the 70's because it was 'to big'. He asked if he could put it in his car rather than throw it away, the owner actually helped the guy load the car with 10k worth of stereo components and power amplifiers. (In working condition no less!) That may be the best deal I have ever heard of, but what happened to me yesterday was as close as I will ever come to that sort of deal.

I had to go out yesterday to the store, so I walk down the street and a neighbor has a couple odds and ends out on the sidewalk he is halking, books, a crappy end table, some horrible lamps, and a giant blue piece of plastic. I walk over to him after going to the store and give him my best 'what the hell is this thing' shmoose line. He says 'oh, its a 1500$ carpet extractor a tenant of mine left at the house, I am trying to unload it.

I say, 'Well does it even work, I would be interested if it actually works, I goto do the carpets in my house soon anyway'. So he plugs it in, I ask him not to turn on the pump but the vacuem sucks air pretty good, not tear your hair out powerful, but for a 2 inch hole, pretty solid.

He says he could go into the long story, but he didn't want to waste my time, so I ask him how much. He says 'Eh, I am looking for 100$', I say...'how about 75' ....answere from him 'eh...I guess thats fine'. I felt like this...

Deal of the century if the extractor pump and everything else works. I haven't had anytime from yesterday to try it out and read up on how to use this thing, but if it works, ....what a frigging deal! (Just found some specs, 2-stage vacuum with around 155" of lift I do not have the heated model, so I will just use boiled water and 303 fabric to do my carpets, the car 'carpets' are going to be the test bed before I work on the house! Retail price of the Comanche model is 1400$ usd!)



Sorry for the poor pictures...

[Black Diamond]

Very nice! That's one Mother Load of a deal!

[IanB]

Thanks Black Diamond, I found out that the pump needs to be rebuilt, so I am ordering those parts now (pretty difficult to track down actually) but you could also just buy a whole new pump for 110-170, I am thinking that is not required for my intended purpose. I will be rebuilding this pump, (with pictures probably) and letting people know how it worked out.

Updates to come soon!
IB

[adriankeith]

Thats a hell of a deal! Congrats! I hope you get her up and running in full. That would be awesome.. what a deal. Is it easy to manuever because that thing looks huge hahaha.

Nice find!

[P1et]

Great deal!

On the B&W boards, this guy found a pair of 800 series speakers (they are $10K a piece) at a pawnshop for about $100 each.

[IanB]

But finding a set of 800 series, would be ridiculous, I imagine they were not pawned by the 'original owners'.

that is a crazy find too, even better than my deal by farrrr...
IB

*Update on the Pump fiasco*

It is really difficult to find a pump for your extractor, the GPM flow rate, the flow curve when under pressure, matched with what tools you have, it becomes very confusing, oh yeah and there are literally thousands of combinations to choose from. All with slightly different materials and specifications that will work on the space shuttle, but not on your carpet extractor. In the end, because I originally wanted to repair my own, I decided to buy a brand that I could always get parts for no matter the 'problem'. The image below is why mine wasn't working (notice the goop/glue and the large crack around the shut-off switch).



Everything else was fine, but the pump would just keep pumping air since the crack was letting in so much. I decided to try to find the part, but of course, that part is not available for this model. So I was forced to buy a new pump. Cheapest/best pump I could find with replaceable everything and in stock and had the right resistance to chemicals with the approximate flow rate across all pressures and had the demand switch (so you don't burn out the pump when you aren't spraying) was here:

Shurflo 100 PSI Viton Pump with Demand Switch - 800-812-288 DS

This is actually a very good pump from my research for what I needed to match. You can go the ebay route, but you won't get the right flow rate most likely, you will pay 1/2 price what a retail one costs, and you will not have a warranty for 1 year. Why bother? Updates to come when the pump is installed. Here are some more pics of disassembly:

Taking out my first screw


More half-assed 'repair' work, pathetic really considering we are talking about 100psi, it needs to be super airtight!



Here's what was inside after the pressure switch assembly was removed



If you ever wondered what a check valve is, this is it (on the bottom of the upper assembly housing, most pictures were of the top so far of that housing)



All parts taken out with exception of the upper housing itself, and the motor. Beginning in the far right going counter clockwise:

bearing on top of motor
diaphragm assembly with metal plate and rubber diaphragm plate
switch assembly
more switch assembly
Pressure plate of the switch assembly
seals and springs of the pressure switch assembly
tiny impeller that I don't know what it does??
check valve

[IanB]

Ok, so the pump came in and after hooking it up everything was working great. Well almost everything, the damn valve at the trigger end of my 'tool' was not properly blocking the flow of solution when the trigger was not engaged. So, another hopeless search took three days to find someone who had a rebuild kit for that valve. Thankfully the one store/person who was selling it was on ebay and it was only 10$ shipped to my door for the crappy little piece of brass and rubber.

Anyway, now it is a fully functioning and working carpet extractor. Tried it out on a kitchen rug outside on my deck and it did a great job. I think I need to pre-treat some of these faux wool rugs and agitate with a stick brush, and then go after it with the hot cleaning solution and extractor.

Just thought I would give an update, pictures will come when I get the extractor upstairs and into the third floor to do the carpets. Problem is that I can't use it for detailing until I get a detailing tool for it (the three inch kind with the single jet/emitter cheapest I have found is around 59 bucks) and I am pretty much out of cash. Who knows, if I will sell it, but at this point I am into it a cool 200$ even, a bit more than I wanted to spend! However, I do now have a fully functioning and great working piece of equipment. Might trade it for a lawn mower or some SOD or other landscaping products.

Anyway just and update. Pictures to come soon.

[Cooter]

Glad it all worked out for ya fella. $200 is still one helluva deal!!!!!!!!!!

[D&D Auto Detailing]

Nice work!