Mark Modrall spake thus:

The second is an old canister vac that is just losing power. I took
the thing apart down to the housing last weekend and cleaned it out, but
it didn't help much. The actual vacuum part (blade and such under the
motor) was in a housing that I couldn't remove so I couldn't tell if
there was something inside I should clean.

I'd say worth opening up and looking around inside, checking brushes and
such as suggested elsewhere.

Just to give you an idea of how vastly superior some of that old stuff
is to the *crap* being made today, my upright vac is an old Kenmore
(probably a rebranded Hoover) that I bought used ca. 1980 (for $10).
Apart from replacing the footswitch when it finally gave out, I haven't
done a thing to it; that thing works as well as the day I bought it, and
probably pretty damn close as well as the day it was made (~1960). So
yeah, it's worth fixing.


--
Napoleon won the battle of Waterloo. The German Wehrmacht won World War
II. The United States won in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan.
The Zealots won against the Romans, and Ehud Olmert won the Second
Lebanon War.

- Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist
(http://counterpunch.org/avnery09022006.html)