Sewsation

My latest acquisition is a Kenmore 1802 (158.18021) with all the trimmings from the original owner. She reported she received it new as a gift in 1969 and never oiled it. She said it was professionally serviced thirty years ago. The feed dogs were frozen, but the basic machine worked. I did not test the machine with the cams because I was unsure of the required settings.

The guts of the machine were dry as a bone. Even the presser foot lever squeaked when moved. I cleaned, oiled and lubed everything I thought required doing so. Carefully using a hair dryer and Tri-Flow, I managed to free up the feed dogs. Hooray! The manual says to change the tension when switching back and forth from narrow to wide stitches. The tension dial rotates like crazy with very little change in tension. In spite of this quirk, I managed to make some halfway decent stitches.

So, on to the cams. I was excited about this because I have another Kenmore 158 series machine (158.18150) with cams, and it sews beautifully. I followed the instructions in the Kenmore 158.18021 owner’s manual and tried about three cams, only to have the machine sew a mess in reverse, tight stitches on top and loops underneath, nothing resembling the cam pattern. The machine will not sew forward when in cam mode. What could be wrong? What may be stuck? What have I missed?

I am a beginner at tinkering with sewing machines. I watch a lot of YouTube sewing machine videos.

JoeJr

Generally speaking, tight stitches up top and a bird's nest underneath is an upper tension problem, and it sounds as though your upper tension unit needs to be taken apart and cleaned up anyway.
Regarding the cam problem, with the machine in forward, and a cam in place, if you turn it by hand will it move cloth in the correct direction? I would try this with no thread, upper or lower. And I would try this with the top off so I could see what's moving, or not moving up top.

OurWorkbench

Are you sure you have the cam seated correctly? I had a machine that the cam follower needed to be adjusted, but unfortunately I didn't make note of where I found the information or what I did to correct it. I did a search for your model to see which one you had. I happened across https://tumorfarmer.blogspot.com/201...g-machine.html About a third of the way down that page there is a video about a sticky cam follower.

Good luck getting it sewing properly.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
Not affiliated with off-site link(s)

Sewsation

OurWorkbench and JoeJr, thank you for your helpful replies. I watched the related video at the recommended link and followed the instructions for cleaning and oiling in that tight area. That special part moved before, but I think it moves better now.

I adjusted the upper and lower tensions, but did not extensively clean the upper tension. Afterward, with some setting adjustments, all of the forward stitches I tested worked, including the cam forward stitches. The tension issue appeared corrected.

The straight, simple zigzag and blind hem stitches seemed perfect, but the satin, smocking and forward cam stitches did not seem completely uniform. Please see what you think. I will try to attach a photo or two. The cam stitches are on the far right.

When I wound a bobbin a couple of days ago, even though the clutch wheel was disengaged, the needle bar moved into the down position when I first began and then stopped there for the remainder of winding the bobbin. Today, winding a bobbin with the clutch wheel disengaged, the needle bar moved continuously up and down the entire time I wound the bobbin.

It sounds like this took me twenty minutes, but I have been fiddling with this machine for hours today!

Sewsation

Sorry that was incomplete. The Kenmore 1802 sewing machine still sews in reverse when using the advanced cams. The cams were seated firmly all the way into the slot. With those advanced cams in place, I manually used the hand wheel and the feed dogs still fed the fabric in reverse.

The forward stitch cams seem to be working alright now, as do the built-in stitches, other than some slightly irregular stitching. Please see photograph. Forward motion is fine with all of those.

Should the cam follower ever have some play in it?

thepolyparrot

It seems as if I've heard of this problem before. I have an 1802 as well and I used to belong to the Vintage Kenmores Sew group on yahoo. They've moved to io - https://groups.io/g/VintageKenmoresSew

Have you already tried there?

JoeJr

I have not done a lot of work with cam machines, but I have to think there's still something stuck up top. Have you applied heat via a hair dryer or heat gun, on low, to loosen up old oil? If you do re-oil when you're finished.

Sewsation

Elizabeth, thank you for the tip about the Kenmore group. No, I have not been there ... yet.

JoeJr, I used a hair dryer the first day because the feed dogs would not lower, and it worked, along with cleaning and Tri-Flow. I used a hair dryer a little today on the part which was featured in that video along with cleaning (rubbing alcohol) and then Tri-Flow. Admittedly, I could not access that part as well as I would have liked. As you mentioned, it seems something must still be stuck up top. I will have to keep at it.

This is my first time dealing with cam function issues. Most of my machines have only built-in stitches. Nonetheless, this is a good lesson about regularly exercising my machines.