Originally Posted by
miriam
The red thing is a lint cleaner - goes in the bobbin area - you can take it out and it won't hurt anything
white grease move or is it solid?
It may not move if the bobbin area has been taken apart like in taking out the red thing and put back together wrong but we need a picture. Dried up oil can keep a machine from turning. I have one right now with T-F in time out because the needle bar doesn't move - it could be bent and never move - who knows. I'm pretty sure that is what is jammed - everything else sort of jiggles. Oil it and see what happens.
Thanks, Miriam, for clearing up the mystery :-)
I did oil it and that did free it up, thankfully. I was just surprised that it ran briefly when she first showed it to me and then bam! pretty much froze up the longer we tried to get it to move (1 min total). That's why I thought maybe a pin had jammed it at the feed dogs or elsewhere....
The white stuff must be grease of some sort, up at the top where the "cams"(?) are or whatever you may call this area, it's where the dials of the different built-in stitches are. I guess it isn't harmful - some bits of it next to the gear wheel were dried up, but it's still oily/slimy on the gear itself....
If anyone has a photo or link showing the lint cleaner installed, I'd appreciate that info.