I sat down with a Phillips head screwdriver, set the canister portion aside, made sure the unit was unplugged, then removed every screw from "base unit" of the vacuum. Kept the screws orderly so I knew where to replace them. Before removing each piece, take a good look at how it is seated into the base. This is surprisingly easy to do, if you are even a tiny bit handy. Once I got the red cap to the base unit off, I could investigate everything inside. Look at your electrical connection/wires, and jiggle them around a little bit. Look for any other problems in there. Then put it all back together, in reverse order. Once I did this, the electrical connection from the canister unit to the base unit started working again.
tangerine, August 2008