Originally Posted by jljack
OK, I have a big problem. Further to my problem of the needle won't go down the throat on my FW, I cannot get one of the throat plate screws loose. It's like it's glued in place. It's the front one, so of course, hard to get a good sized screwdriver on it. I put some WD40 around the edge of the screw, and I tried for 20 minutes to get it out. Not a budge!!! I am soooo frustrated with it. The rear screw came right out. From the bottom I was able to see some very old thick thread wound around behind the bobbin/hook assembly, and I think I got it all out. But the needle still won't go down.
Any suggestions? I think I'm just gonna bite the bullet and take it to the shop. I'm kinda mad at myself for not verifying that it was operational before I bought it. The handwheel turns fine until you put a needle in...which it did not have in when I bought it. My own fault. But at this point I just want her working.
I would get some penetrating oil from below (turn her upside down - be very careful of your paint though. Then I would try heat on that screw. DH has more strength than I do for that. He had to drill one out with some special kind of tool once. I stayed out of his way... I usually use a screw driver tip from out of the kind that stores in the handle and a tiny wrench to get those off - I used to have a long screw driver ground at a slight angle worked pretty good - it was stolen a while back... It is very hard sometimes to get that screw out because of the angle you have to work at. I'd hate to see the repair bill just getting that screw out.... and I'd hate to hear somebody talking to that machine...
When you lift the lid what do you see the shuttle doing? You said you got thread out. Is the notch in it's right place or is it spinning around under there? You did say it turned nice.
http://www.ismacs.net/singer_sewing_...ght-manual.pdf look at the info on page 12. It has a great photo of how it is suppose to look. I realize it is a FW but they look about the same. If it is not set like that it could be your problem. But you still have to get the plate off and reset the notch if that is what is wrong.