Originally Posted by
miriam
Sew classic used to stock tension pieces other suppliers may, too
I doubt if you can just pop any old tensioner in.
You can buy the whole plate with a rebuilt tensioner from somebody who has extras laying around... it sounds like that is what you did.
It took me a bit to find out just what was missing, they obviously had broken their spring and then dismantled the tensioner to get the parts and fix it, but then never did.
The back plate for it was missing, the spring, and the small stop washer.
I found one on ebay complete with the nose plate and another that was just all in pieces, so I bought both.
I'm just starting with this, so I had no "parts" laying around to fix it and wasn't sure exactly what was missing.
Now I know that particular tensioner like the back of my hand, but still would like to find some complete.
I have a hunch that the The Singer HA #17 tensioner can be made to work and will look right on the machine (like original) but I haven't bought one of those yet to play around with it and find out.