Experience is a good teacher - Joe you might have something - needle out of time with take up.... Who knows Egor may have worked on that machine. When Egor couldn't fix the tension Egor went after it with a screwdriver and 'fixed' that take up lever... GGGRRRRRR I've seen some pretty good looking tension springs only to find that they weren't meant for what ever machine. When you clean off the tension pull out the center pin and give it a bath in something to take off the dried oil. Some times the shaft it rides in needs a bit of clean up,too. I have a bottle of Naptha Some times Naptha doesn't do it some times it takes alcohol. I put the whole thing in and then clean off when I'm ready to re-assemble. I look for dried oil, rust and burrs. But from here out I'm checking that lever, too. Thanks Joe.