301 Take-up lever
 

I am working on a tan 301A I picked up. The take-up lever hits the faceplate before it makes its full revolution. There is a tiny nick where this had to have happened a time or two before the machine was obviously put away and not used for some time.

I can not figure out what to do about this. I have tried to find something on wefixit yahoo groups, but apparently I am yahoo-challenged.

The "Tools for Self Reliance" has a brief blurb about replacing the whole assembly, but not about how to tweak one that is already in the machine. It does tell me that the screw is a "left handed" thread so is to be turned opposite the normal way, which is obviously good to know.

Help?

with the face plate open and looking straight at it. There's a dog leg at the levers base,, meaning the flat metal where it make a 90 degree turn.

I would clamp vise grips on the arm / tale up lever and just give it a slight pull up ward, aka rebend the arm

of course you'll have to figure out how you want to keep the machine from turning over, while you do that.

I just checked mine, it will bent pretty easy. when it's down like in the pic, there is at best 1/8 " clearance,, when all the way up maybe thats a 1/4" clearance ,, so twice as much on top as at the bottom.

what works ever better to bend stuff like this is a piece of tubing slipped over the arm or like a deep well 1/4" socket with an extension as a handle

Not to be argumentative, but I would not try to bend that arm. They are brittle hard parts. I've replaced two of them and you can see just how brittle they are at the break.

Something is out of adjustment under that face plate. It's better to figure out where to adjust, than to try brute force.

Also if the arm is already bent, trying to straighten it may well break it. That's been discussed here to more than once.

Joe

joe you have never looked at a 301 take up arm, there stamp sheet metal

Here are two photos of my tan (malfunctioning) 301A and the black 301A which seems to be fine. Can you see anything that looks off? I have stared and stared...

I'm only getting teh tan pic, but thats my computer .


with the face closed the arm is closet to teh face plate right , like almost rubbing on that

I wanted to mark teh spot . I can't right now.


do you know what a dog leg is ?

teh flat metal area thats make a short 90 degree bend.. The angle is bad, it looks twisted or maybe bent. you need to see that straight on and straight down . compare that to the other one.

your only going to see a few degree's difference.

Comparing the two, the take up arm on the tan looks like it is shifted at the top about 1/8 inch forward compared to the black.
I'm looking where the take up arm meets the other piece at the top.

I'm getting both photo's now It's bent at the dog leg. ( little short flat area ) just get ahold of that area and tweak it down. that will move the end of the arm closer to the body, and move the tip of the arm out all at the same time.

remember your only tweaking it a hair. don't use Joes brute force method