Along with the Kenmore dryer I found last Sunday, I also came across this Sears Kenmore Range Hood Mod # 850.5456721. I called Sears in the vain attempt to find replacement filters (four), but no dice. He did tell me it was manufactured in 1987 by the Whirlpool corporation.  

...and well built for being a product of the late '80's. When I first saw it I thought it was late '60's, early '70's. I guess it was designed back then. 

And he's a big boy, 42 inches wide. My 1965 Slattery is 36 inches. Oddly enough, the cut out for the range hood in my kitchen is 44 inches wide. An easy fit. 

So far I've tried, ammonia, engine degreaser and Easy Off. With limited success.  

So it's not an external venting one?
I pretty dislike these indoor ones, I think they're worth nothing..... still nice for places where outside venting isn't possible though.

For the grease dirt things, are they stainless??? If  they're and are  not alluminum, I'd go out buy a box of washing soda, let it soak overnight in very hot water, soda and  a good degeaser solution or ammonia, then give a run in the dishwasher heavy soil cycle...

That's what I would try to do.... most of  today's degreasers usually fail, at least for me....

...so you have to use these types of hoods. The other 2 filters are aluminum, and the remaining 2 seem to be made of steel. Will try your baking soda approach...thanks! 

Another great idea...thanks Arthur!

Good for you! It's a nice hood, surely better of one's of today ventless ones, of course!!!!

I hope my suggestion would help you, not sure if you confused or you understand baking soda but I said washing soda, baking soda would not do much as washing soda would in this case, even though many people do that with baking soda also,  but being yours a particular thick aged and guess built up in several years layer ...washing soda/sal soda indeed really would be the only solution  as it is a way more powerful degreaser than baking soda!

Just DO NOT use washing soda in Alluminum ones only in stainless ones.... washing soda will damage allunminum as it will oxidate it!
Boiling them or soak in a very hot solution of water and soda may be the key, just thought you didn't have a that large pot but if you have that would be wonderful to boil in soda and water, otherwise just pour hot water in you sink and let the soak.
Good luck!

Thanks Federico!

@ Arthur/cuffs. I think you are both right, these filters do seem to be charcoal.

I do have a large pot, so they're all getting boiled tonight!

@ DADoES, hmmm, if your hood was from the '70's, mine has to be older. The Sears rep must had been wrong dating my hood to 1987. 

I will most definitely contact them. The secondary filter is indeed a charcoal one. I was wondering, would it be possible to simply refill it with fresh charcoal? BTW, the primary mesh filters are boiling away. 

These were pretty good quality hoods, we had a very similar one, best thing about these is they had a florescent light instead of the usual inefficient incandescent light bulbs. This hood was NOT made by Whirlpool, in fact I don't think that WP ever made range hoods themselves.

Boy that Sears rep sure got EVERYTHING wrong on this hood. So I'm going back to my original assessment that the hood is really from the late '60's, early '70's.

@washer111 I opened the hood up even further today, grease build up is even WORSE than I thought. Will post pictures. Also, I'm going to try and power it up. The blower fans move freely, so I'm inclined to believe the motor is fine.   

That's one of the charcoal filters on the right, stuck tight with all the grease. YUK. 

Completely disassemble and clean every inch of it. 

Sorry to tell you Louie, but that fan motor is not worth any further effort, it has seriously worn bearings.

I found the correct timer knob and dial for your WP portable dryer yesterday and boxed it up today and will send it out tomorrow.

Thanks John, I'll keep an eye out for it. Bummer about the motor on the hood. I'll just have to replace the motor, this hood is just too good to toss. 

Now to look for information on Chambers range hoods!

Yes this may have come in as a Chambers Product, but this hood was made long before WP had anything to do with any Chambers products, but I guess it can now be considered a WP product by default.

I used an even stronger degreaser today and found that it actually started to strip the paint on the inside of the hood. Under the paint it's nice and shiny stainless steel. Soooooo, I thought why not buy a paint stripper and leave it all in stainless. Would this be a good idea? Or should I just repaint it? 

@ yogi, I've heard of Purple, if this new stuff conks out, I'll give it a try.

@ Jamie, Thanks for the info!

These Range Hood s were available in a SS finish, but unless someone bought a SS one and painted it what you are seeing is not SS [ if if was a SS hood that was painted the outside finish would have a grained appearance ] That said bare steel is shinny like SS and I have seen people strip things like old steel radiator covers polish and add light grain to them and then you must clear-coat them immediately to keep them from rusting. How successful this all depends on how good the bare steel looks when you get it all stripped, many times the bare steel looks blotchy and uneven in color and no amount of cleaning and adding grain makes it look great.

Hmmm, then I guess it will remain painted. Seems like too much work for something that may not look right in the end. The section where the paint lifted is a small panel that covers the access to the filters. I'll just completely strip and repaint it.  Thanks John. 

I finally went back to the range hood today (yes, yes, the Kenmore washer is waiting...I got all the parts in already, and the Toastmaster fan is waiting too). I started to dismantle it for cleaning. To my dismay, some of the painted parts are peeling/chipping when I scrub. Sooo, long story short, I'm just going to strip the parts and repaint them. What paint should I use?  It must be durable to withstand heat and cleaning. Rust-Oleum or perhaps something else?

So I decided to finish the Kenmore hood first before I do the Slattery/Caloric switch. I've finally completely disassembled it and started to clean the layer upon layer of grease and grime. I'm using DEP oven cleaner, with some success. But it is taking multiple applications and as I mentioned earlier, it is lifting off the factory paint. I've decided to leave it on bare metal. It actually looks better than the paint anyway. So it won't rust, I want to apply something clear, but is also resistant to high heat and repeated cleanings. Any ideas?

Removing the motor

Under the hood. YUK!

After 3 applications of cleaner, STILL greasy.

The exterior after 3 cleanings and some Bar Keepers Friend

The final layer of grease in this section...

One of the two fans:

Fan removed, motor looks surprisingly clean.

Twin fan shrouds.

I think that black grime is what's left of the foam gasket used to seal the duct to the body of the hood.

No dishwasher yet Jon. Waiting to find a Kitchenaid KDS-58. Thanks for the tip. I used a brush and the fans came out fine.

Hey thanks Sandy, may not even bother to clear coat the area. It's not perfect, but know one will know.

So I checked the blower motor to see if oil would quiet it down. Oddly enough, when I tried it out, it ran quiet. Perhaps the noise (see reply # 29) was being caused by something else? Or maybe because there is no load, the bearings are running quieter? The vid is from before I oiled it.

After some oiling running much quieter.

Funny, my dad said the same thing this morning. The motor is a goner. after a quick search online, not seeing much out there that is compatible so far. Thanks guys.

Hey thanks Sandy, much obliged.

I was wondering, if it is the bearings, how difficult would it be to replace them?

Thanks again Sandy!

While I get the motor sorted out, I decided to continue cleaning the rest of the hood. I was very reluctant to clean the faux wood with the Sears Kenmore logo. So I used dish washing liquid and warm water with a sponge thinking it would be mild enough.  It got rid of the grease and grime, along with the paint on the raised letters and it began to lighten the faux wood. See post #3 to see how it originally looked.

Ok, here is my attack plan, contact paper over the faux wood, and a paint pen to repaint the lettering. I have very steady hands, so I have been told, so I think it can come out pretty decent. Unless anyone has a better idea?

Hey thanks guys, will look into those sites!

Thanks Phil. And you're right, never seen one like this before. Seems vintage hoods get tossed. Not many out there.

Well the cleaning is done on the body of the hood. I decided to primer and paint the entire underside after all. 

I just wiped the I.D. tag with water.

Duct after cleaning. To be honest it was already rusty. Another candidate for stripping, primer and paint.

The light/control bar is in fair shape. Really dirty and some heat damage. It seems it was directly over the 2 front burners, so it got the brunt of the heat and splatter.

Oh yes, the hood is for the Caloric. That's why I slowed down work on the Caloric in order to finish and install the hood first before I make the switch.

I can't imagine cleaning the fan "frequently". Not fun to remove, let alone clean.

Well I'm done cleaning the light bar/control panel. It has some issues but it's presentable.

There is some light rust where the chrome finish has worn off. Thankfully it won't be seen once it's securely installed.

The knobs came out nice 'n shiny.

I am no connoisseur of wood grain, but what do you think?

Close enough?

They're the closest I have been able to find so far.

No, it's actually con-tact paper Phil. I'm not sure how resistant wood veneer would be to all the heat and grease.

Formica and wood veneer are great options, but where could I find scrap Formica? Now the veneer is doable. That I am going to look into.

Thanks Matt!

Gotta' be contact paper. Formica or wood veneer would be too thick. The center tag would be recessed.

I haven't forgotten this. I am currently reinforcing the upper cabinets. I noticed there was a 1/4 inch gap between the ceiling and the front of the cabinets. The rear is fine though. So some heavy duty "L" brackets and concrete screws is taking care of the problem. Once this is done, it's full steam ahead with the hood, then stove and finally the fridge.

Not yet. I'm still catching up with other stuff. BUT this week I finally start again. Stay tuned!

Well I am done with the upper cabinets. Just painted the underside of the hood with high temperature paint. Pictures to follow.

Good hood! (Probably just need a few coats of VARNISH!)

-- Dave

Only the shell of the hood is being used to locate bore holes correctly. When it was removed or should I say, yanked from it's former home, some of the panels are a bit off. Easy fix.

I'm only using 2 screws to hold up the front, hence the gap. That will be corrected with a couple of screws.

Getting ready for the final install. I removed the mosaic tile from behind where the hood will be. I will use the salvaged tiles in other areas. The tiles where installed back in 1967.

Junction box, blowers and vent installed. The vent and blowers were not painted since they will be hidden. But they were certainly cleaned. New foam was also installed from blowers to vent surround.

I just noticed I installed the blower motor backwards. DOH!

Louie that reminded me of when we were having Sears install a complete new kitchen in our house in 1966. The hood was very similar to the one you are restoring except it was vented up through the cabinet, the installer commented that we finally got a quite one. After they left for the day one of my brothers noticed that the blower assembly was installed blowing to the rear, so we turned it around and pointed out to the installer the next day that the fan was not all that quite LOL.

After a few years of constantly replacing the two incandescent light bulbs every few months I modified the hood to hold a 24" florescent light bulb and never replaced the bulb again till I redid the kitchen in 1988 [ I also cut the power consumption down to 1/4 the former usage ].

Well I reinstalled the motor, so now it will suck correctly. I finished putting the new contact paper on the hood. I still need to paint the raised lettering. After that is done, I'll spray clear lacquer on it for protection. 

Before:

After:

Thanks Phil. That wasn't contact paper to the left of the wood grain. It was a plastic diffuser for the work light. It's in great shape. I will be reinstalling it tonight. Getting close to the finish line.

First power up, everything is working as it should. I tried to paint the raised lettering but it was next to impossible to do a neat job. So I left it as is. I sprayed clear lacquer over the contact paper though.

Thanks Phil! The hood measures 41 3/4" wide. The width of the space above the hood is 44". The range is 36". I could have had a 40" range and still have space left over. Unfortunately, the kitchen is too narrow for me to take a full front on picture. I am hoping to finish the hood tonight.

Wow Ken, thanks! I should had thought of that. Even though the tag looks OK as is, I would had preferred for it to be painted. Now here's the rub. It's been lacquered. Would the ink still adhere to it?

Thanks again Ken, I will definitely try this!

Gulp! That's sounds a bit too complicated for me Phil. I will try the brayer method, if that doesn't pan out, it stays as a clear tag. Thanks anyway Phil!

Testing dual, squirrel cage fans. Runs well, 2 speeds. Next will be installing the filters and the cover.

Installed the charcoal and mesh filters. Eventually they will be replaced with new ones. Painted and installed the filter/motor cap. One thing left to do, paint the letters and it's done.

Hi Louie, these may be impossible to find for an older hood, but you can usually open up one end and just replace the charcoal granules and they will be as good as new, to really keep these filters effective you need to do this at least once a year and maybe every 3 months.

I thought of refilling the charcoal eventually. The aluminum filters are a bit beat up but serviceable for now.  See you next Saturday John!

I give up. No technique I have tried gave me satisfactory results. The problem is those damn letters are so slightly embossed on that aluminum tag, it's virtually impossible to do a neat job. I tried the brayer, a small stamp and a paint pen.  I used different consistencies of ink. I used the lightest touch. Nope. So, that's it, it stays as is.

After almost two years, It's been totally disassembled, cleaned, painted, polished and put back into service.  One less hood that had to be manufactured.

Thanks Ken!

Thanks again Ken, and thank you Phil!

Now it's Ultramatic time!

Thanks! I think it looks better too. One thing about the paint for the lettering, it seemed way too "black". The older paint seemed to be a more grayish black, perhaps due to age. Anyhow, while many in this building have hoods, they are all interior venting.Sometimes you get the "aroma" of frying fish or garlic.

Grease, oh God, don't remind me. That was the most time consuming, messy and difficult task done. These things were NOT designed to keep clean easily. So many nooks and crannies and SHARP edges! The only thing that helped remove the grease was ZEP degreaser. And of course a lot of scrubbing. Thankfully, I don't fry much, so a major cleaning won't be in the cards for the next 12 months or so.

The fluorescent light has developed a loud humming sound.  It's currently using a T8 bulb. As far as I can tell, it is still using the original magnetic ballast. I plan to replace it with a new electronic ballast. Should I also replace the starter? 

I am not sure how easily you will find an electronic ballast to replace your orignal ballast, I would just replace the ballast with a new magnetic one, these are normally almost silent, but if some of the iron lamenations get loose they can become quite noisy.