On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:02:23 -0500, Gordon Shumway wrote:

On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 15:18:29 -0700, "David Farber"
wrote:

JimT wrote:
On 8/21/2011 4:56 PM, David Farber wrote:
JimT wrote:
On 8/21/2011 4:46 PM, David Farber wrote:
JimT wrote:
On 8/21/2011 2:19 AM, David Farber wrote:
The model number is 113.179255.

A picture of the filter is he
http://webpages.charter.net/mrfixiter/index.html


The nut you see at the top of the picture won't budge. Thus, I
cannot remove the filter. I called Sears and they said it should
come off easily without any tools. The vacuum is less than a year
old and only used a couple of times. I don't think I ever removed
the filter before. You can see how mangled that plastic nut is
now after trying every tool the in drawer to remove it. (Why
would they use a plastic nut?) I must be missing something
really obvious. One other thing I should mention, the owners
manual shows the parts blow up which includes a "filter nut
lever." I didn't see anything like that attached to or near the
nut. Thanks for your replies.
Cut the whole thing off. It looks like it's made of plastic and
paper. What usually do is cuss a lot and mangle until I get the
results I
want.
Yes, epic fail. (I always wanted to use that term on the internet
(- Ok, I just kept twisting until the "nut" came off. Scroll
down and see the results. http://webpages.charter.net/mrfixiter
Then see what turned up a little while later hiding in a pile of
papers. Didn't anyone at the two Sears stores I called AND their
parts department know about this? Thanks for your reply.
OOPS!

Too much mangle and not enough cussing. Maybe you should have used
an "angle grinder". LOL
Angle grinder?
That was a dumb joke.

Could I have seen how the filter was installed on that so I
could have figured out how to replace the filter on the vac? (-;

Actually, I was thinking if you cut off the filter you might have
figured it out. Couldn't you access the manual online or is this a
good case for "reading the manual"?

I did access the manual online. It showed a nut with half a wing as one
previous poster, willshak, pointed out in his link:
http://www.svcvacuum.com/ridgid/73316.asp

When I called the Sears parts department, they confirmed the same thing. It
was only that one piece of paper I posted online that was tossed in with the
vac somewhere that shows the correct parts blowup. Must be a well kept
secret at Sears.

Maybe next time you think of buying something from Sears you will
remember this debacle and go somewhere else to spend your money. Sears
has been on the downhill slide for many years. Kmart may be
successful at putting them out of their misery.

While I agree with your sentiments WRT Sears, there are a ton of these shop
vacs running around. I have one (from 20ish years ago), too. They won't get
any more of my money (or shopping time), but I do have some of their junk.