HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Complete success. This thing is stitching like a maniac now! I wish you could see/hear him go!!!!
You guys were right; the needle plate was a bit burred up; it looked as though from needles hitting the plate over time (when breaking, I suppose). I sanded nicely with 600 wet dry, and bingo. I have just sewn about three feet of perfect zig zag stitches, some of them at roughly 90 miles an hour :-) Hee hee.
Now I must figure out what to actually sew, besides random rows of speedy stitches :-)
Thank you again all of you who helped me resuscitate this machine, bit by bit. I have learned a lot which I will take with me to other machines; I also hope these many posts on this machine were of interest/instruction to others.
-C.