Originally Posted by
Candace
Bennett, some 301's have their feed dog knob stuck. I had one machine that I had to work on for quite some time. You just need to Triflow it and keep at it and it will turn, eventually. You will have better control if you can get that knob turning and lower the feed dogs.
Yes, the thread cutter needs to be removed depending on which FMQ foot you use. A couple of my 301's are missing their thread cutter as I suspect someone removed it for FMQ and then never put it back. The FMQing foot is loud, I agree!
It seemed to work fine without lowering the feed dogs, so I might not mess with it until it bothers me. The knob turns easily; I think the problem might be more in whatever connects the 2. I'm thinking of putting some kind of thin cushion on the hopping foot where it hits the needle clamp to see if that helps the noise.
This poor machine was frozen up tight when I got her. The bed has some kind of marks that look like maybe she was put in a clamp to try to get the main shaft on top to turn. I found some tool marks on that too when I was cleaning her up. Glad they didn't bend it! The motor and wiring looked great, so I think she froze up fairly early in life, probably from 3-in-1 or something similar.