need help to repair Bissell carpet cleaner

[Philip5malin]

Please someone tell me how to repair Bissell carpet cleaner. I have a Bissell carpet cleaner model 1698 Turbo Brush Power Steamer Pro Series 1697 / 1698 purchased in 2005, used by my wife 2 times. Now she says it does not work anymore, bought for $200, used once in

2006, once in 2007. problem is that no water spraying out, brush does not turn. I got a repair manual from Sears and Bissell. So I took charge and attempt to take it apart. The hub housing is awful hard to remove. I used philip screw driver removed 4 screws on hub cover, turn it over, used 2 flat screwdrivers to ply open the front under lip to remove the hub cover. Found brush not moving. Belt slipping due to pump shaft frozen. managed to used plier to turn shaft, then brush starts to turn. Cleaned out all debris. Found water not pumping through. Traced line to heater on top handle. Opened middle handle by removing screws, found heater, opened heater, found all corroded inside. Use drill bit 3/16 drill out plugged holes, brushed cleaned channels, simulated flow, it works to that point. When I reassembled hub cover back, found hub cover cannot close or go back exactly flush tight. Thus water tank outlet does not meet pump line intake. So I attempt to make it flush, many trials, removed any possible interference, including detergent selection knob and handle, red turn wheel indicator, many tubings, and simply short out flow circuit as much as possible. I got the machine to work 50% of the time only. Sometimes the tank will meet the intake and work. Sometimes it will not meet and not work. It seems like the hub cover was designed for tight fit with many fringes for interference. Any suggestion to make a tight fit?

[Dan K]

Your experience sounds a lot like mine, only I wound up breaking the plastic around where the soap flow control switch is (not knowing how things came apart) and was never able to fix it good enough to satisfy the wife. I wound up buying another one unit and now I have one for parts. After finding the heater plugged up (like yours) I told the wife to remove the shampoo and spray until nothing comes out when finished. We have had no trouble with plugged heaters since. A year later, the pump broke. I wound up cutting an access panel out of the plastic housing to get at the pump and replaced it with the one from the parts unit. So our working unit has a hole in it now (covers up nicely with duct tape). After fixing, I ordered a new pump and found that the pump had been improved with metal replacing plastic right where ours broke. It does a nice job of cleaning, and is not horribly expensive, but it sure seems to need a lot of work and is not real easy to work on.

The only fit trouble I had was if one of the tubes got pinched when 2 plastic pieces came together and then the soap valve (which I broke). As a last resort there is a lot of plastic in the unit that doesn't do anything that can be cut away so you can see whats going on and then patched it back togeather.

[Philip5malin]

I agree with you 100%. There are lots of ABS plastic on the cover that is not needed (over Engineering) that hindered and prevented the cover to go back tight. I will take your advice and pump out the liquid every time before storage. On the soap switch, I removed it completely, so it does not hinder the installation of hub cover. I basically bypassed soap switch, heater, handle switch, flow indicator, so no excess tubings can hinder the installation of hub cover. So essentially I have now a Bissell that works like a simply $69 Bissell carpet cleaner without soap switch, without heater, just tank and brush. Simple and efficient. Yes, indeed , I also just bought another Bissell, a basic Bissell $68, no more $200 Pro, as a back up. Now my wife can use either one, and leave me alone. Thank you for your suggestions and inputs.

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