Originally Posted by
JudyTheSewer
Thanks for the information and the link to the oiling utube Mariam. I just bought a 403A yesterday. It is very dirty/gritty from sitting in a storage unit and the needle bar does not move from the left position regardless of where the needle position switch is set. When the 0 cam is in and the width is set to the maximum setting the needle barely moves and created pretty much a wobbly straight stitch. It came only with the 0 cam, zigzag foot, and the zigzag needle plate. Luckily, I found 6 top hat cams and some slant needle feet in a White cabinet drawer that I bought. I also have a 301 with all of the feet so I should be okay in that department. It was great to see this thread this morning and I'm glad to hear that the 403 is a good machine. I'll be heading down to the "shop" in a bit and start cleaning her up. I think I'll bring down our spare hair dryer too. I'll try to remember to post what I find is the solution to getting this machine's needle bar moving.
Needle bar could well be an easy fix. Push the needle bar to the right - see how it goes in and out side ways on a pin? Clean that pin up - probably gummy dried up oil. Then push again on the needle bar and look under the butterfly/rectangle thing next to where the top hats cams go - there is another pin that goes in and out - side ways - clean that. No camstack readers to gum up. Some times it takes brake cleaner to get the gum out - Tri-flow is good though. I pack it with cosmetic pads so the brake cleaner doesn't go anywhere - put a towel on the rest of the machine.