Dorothy, the first Singer 401G I worked on took me about a year to make it work right. I worked on it. Gave up and went back to it again and again. It works beautifully and now I know a lot about Singer 401s, etc. Keep on with it. At least you have a manual and somewhere to turn for problems.
I had a 401 about a week ago that was giving me fits with it's tension. I replaced the tension and it was still doing it so it wasn't the tension. I looked for burrs & polished up some burrs in the throat plate and on the hook - that wasn't all of it. I took apart the bobbin case area and cleaned. That wasn't all of it. There was a slight adjustment on the spring that did some good. I set the tension real loose on both ends and then tighten a little at a time. Eventually it worked just fine. Some times you clean up a tension and it magically goes back together and works beautifully the first try. Some times not. Keep going on it.
Last edited by miriam; 03-13-2014 at 01:52 AM.