A greasy question
 

All my life when I've greased a bearing or a gear, I GREASE IT BIG TIME. I don't just put a dab on and call it good, I coat the whole bearing or gear and leave no part bare.

When I rebuilt the motor on my 1936 vintage 15-91 I really greased the motor drive gear. And I made sure that everything else was oiled well too.

Yesterday when I did my 201-2 I noticed there was very little grease on the motor drive gear and even less on the feed dog and bobbin drive gears. They are greased now big time.

I'm not worried about the wick grease getting into the motor housing, but from what I saw with the 201-2 even the little bit they had in there had been flung off all the way around the inside of the housing.

So my question is, how much is too much?

Joe

I oil frequently as I sew for at least 4 hours every day, so I make sure to only oil very slightly, like a drop in each area. Too much and it creates a big mess inside the machine and on my fabric. I do big cleanings maybe every 6 mos. and then again only grease slightly. Not quite a dab, but I don't coat it to fling everywhere.

In Ray's class he told us to grease the gears with enough grease to look like a kite string.

Well, I've always thought people were a bit stingy with grease. But in this case I may have been a bit generous. I'll probably have to remove some from the 15-91. Icky pooo!


Joe

I've seen working machines done both ways - go figure - lots of grease can be very messy

Messy doesn't usually bother me or create a problem. But in some cases it will. I think the 15-91 might be one of those cases. I'll have to pull the hand wheel and see how much grease has been flung around the inside of the housing.

Joe

How do you remove the grease?

Well, rags, q-tips, pop cycle sticks, round pointed shish-kee-bob sticks to get into the corners. It's not hard when the grease is still soft. The hard part comes when it solidifies.

Joe

Joe, I'm too lazy to look up your post on which motors need greasing. The motor on my MW 15 clone seems like it would like some grease, but there are no ports on the top. Is it one that does need grease or are the ports elsewhere?

To answer your question, I grease my 301 lightly. I feel the movement of the gears will distribute it. I oil more heavily, but that machine seems to want it. The 404 I recently purchased is dirty with grease. I'll assemble your 'tool' list for cleaning it.

irishrose,

I've not yet seen a clone that uses grease in the motor. If yours is oilable it will have a small oil hole above where the armature shaft bushings would be on the ends of the motors. Some do not have oil holes.

When I've taken motors apart for rewiring that don't have oil holes, I soaked the bushings and if equipped the felt around the bushings in oil. Removed the excess and put 'em back together.

Otherwise I'm not sure how to go about oiling motors without oil holes.

Joe