Quote: I am about to throw this machine out the back door! When I lower the presser foot down my top thread is very hard to pull thread out through the needle.
I don't know your specific machine, but I my Janome is hard, if not impossible, to pull the thread through with the presser foot down. Have you tried pulling the thread through with the presser foot up, putting thread through the presser foot and out to back, then lowering the needle into fabric, then lowering the presser foot? Don't know if this would help or not, but maybe worth a try.