Day 2 with Lenore: More issues

The day after I bought machine #6 -- Lenore -- I came home from work and started tinkering (well, after dinner). I took off the drip pan first. The pad was soaked with old oil, and there were bits of lint and old, brown, gunky grease. The pad itself came off easily. I took a picture of it and then threw it in the trash. Then I got on eBay and bought a new drip pad, belt, LED bulb and bed cushions.

I turned the hand wheel, with difficulty, and realized that the belt was actually sliding around the motor pulley -- the pulley itself wasn't turning at all. I loosened the bolt holding the motor to the machine, calling on the manly-man strength of my husband because I couldn't get it to move. This was a frequent occurrence as I worked on Lenore. The screws on that machine were stubborn.

After I loosened the motor bolt, I removed the old, frayed belt. After that, the hand wheel moved very smoothly.

I moved on to the hook assembly and confirmed what several people on my Yahoo group had suggested. Lenore has the original Featherweight hook assembly, which was changed sometime in 1934 (I think). This old-style assembly requires removal of the whole thing in order to remove the bobbin case base and thereby clear any thread jams. I decided on that night that since the thread wasn't inhibiting the movement of the hook and hand wheel, I would leave it alone.

A small digression: I had misdiagnosed the problem. Sure, the hook moved freely with the needle plate removed. The problem started when I had to put the positioning finger back into the slot under the needle plate. Then, nothing would budge. The bobbin case base was stuck to the hook assembly. But I figured that out a little later...

End of digression.

My next stop was inspection of the gears. And, yuck! There was more old, brown hardened grease on the upper and lower gears. In fact, some of the grease had gotten onto the lead tubing that holds the lamp wires, and onto the inside of the machine housing. It must have flown off those gears when the machine was running. Someone liked to use a lot of grease on the gears! I cleaned off what I could and then decided I needed some kerosene to really clean them off properly. Not wanting to buy a whole gallon of kerosene, I placed a request on the local Freecycle to see if anyone would give me a small amount.
I took a peek at the motor next. It was covered in dust, so it would need a good exterior cleaning just for cosmetic reasons if nothing else. I would also need to check the brushes, which I planned to do the next day. I had made some progress on day 2, but not much.

Day 1 with Lenore

After I arrived home with Lenore, I couldn't resist trying to fix her right away. I thought to myself, "It's probably just a simple thread jam. Five minutes of work and she'll be ready for cleaning and oil!"

Wrong.
I started by pulling out whatever bits of thread I could see in the bobbin area. When I went to see the machine, I had had to force the bobbin case out of the machine by breaking the thread that tangled in the hook area. The needle was stuck halfway down, which I needed to deal with, too.
I removed the needle plate and pulled out some more thread. There was also some lint under there and I cleared that out with tweezers. Once I pulled out the visible thread, I was able to get the hand wheel to move!
I could see that there was still some thread caught behind the bobbin case base (there were wisps sticking out) so I decided to try to remove the base. I have done that before, on my 1938 Featherweight that arrived from Goodwill with a thread jam. I removed the gib screw and tried to swing out the gib... no luck. Why wasn't it moving? Was it stuck? I tried to move it but didn't want to risk breaking it. I put the gib screw back in and posted a message on the Yahoo group about Featherweights asking for advice.
I decided I wasn't going to solve that particular issue that night, so I moved on to the face plate. The screw was hard to budge but it eventually moved. Nothing behind the face plate looked unusual, just more lint. I removed the belt, as it was split in two places and definitely wasn't going to be usable.
My shopping list was already forming: a new belt, new rubber "feet" for the bottom of the machine, and an LED bulb.
I still needed to remove the drip pan to see what the underside looked like.
The next day, I would discover exactly what a hassle it was going to be to clear that thread jam.