Joe, here is a thread about the springs.
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...s-t183629.html I want one of those. I would have had a better view of what I was doing when I was thread painting the ducks and eagles on my son's quilt. Thank you, JMCDA, fo the directions in case I find one.
Caroline, does that stick up thing (now there's a technical term) in the top center of your machine move. A similar lever is bigger and further to the right on my Universal. It has to be moved to the right in order for the big knob to turn and choose different stitches.
Joe, my Universal is twin to my mothers' White and as far as I can find out was made by the Koyo factory that manufactured Whites. When White went out of the manufacturing business and only became a distributor, the factory kept making machines and shipping them to the US where new names were given. Caroline's looks like a higher end model of the same machine. Caroline, what is the # on yours?
I sat down at the machine and could operate everything - muscle memory, maybe? BTW, when I have a machine apart, I oil everything that moves or even might move.