Progress report 12/9/15
Thank you all for the encouragement. One good thing about all the dried oil is that it really protected it from rust.
Yesterday John wanted to take the "work stand" apart, so I took advantage of having the machine out of the stand to take the shuttle carrier and feed dogs out. The shuttle carrier moved freely through its normal track but when I went to remove it there was a lot of dried oil at the ends of the track. I tried to scrape some out but still wouldn't easily come out. I ended up using a wood dowel and rubber mallet to the wood dowel, much like getting stuck plates off a Singer 27. The feed dogs were sandwiched between some connecting rods. Here it is after taking out the screws.
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Needless to say, the feed dogs didn't slide out easily. I used a cuticle stick and the rubber mallet and was able to move it. Almost out -
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This is the side of the feed dogs that is facing the shuttle.
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The other side - It isn't real noticeable in this picture but one of the screw holes was barely visible as when removing the screw it must have pulled in a bunch of dried oil.
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The shuttle carrier after I got it out
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I decided to try to remove the dried oil as much as I could, as easily and quickly as I could, by giving it a bath in Oxi-Clean. (Maybe a half hour soak) I brushed some of the crud off with a stiff bristle brush.
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Looking better -
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I will do a bit more polishing on these before going back into the machine -- I still have lots of cleaning of the parts still on the machine, especially where these parts go.
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.