Help identifying issue with featherweight
 

My featherweight is my absolute favorite machine ever! In the past couple of days she had begun sewing verrryyyyy sllllooooowwwwllllyyyy.

So I'm wondering if this is a foot pedal issue or a motor issue or something else entirely.

I cleaned and oiled her (which she was due for) and it helped only marginally.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Have you checked the belt? Sometimes it is to tight and makes the machine run slow.

I was going to suggest the belt as well. There is an adjustment you can make to the motor position to help tighten the belt. I had to make several adjustments after replacing the belt relatively recently. Slowness was a symptom. If you've recently changed your belt, that could be the issue as well since it may now be a bit more 'stretched' than when first installed.

How do I know how snug the belt needs to be? The belt is the one that was on it when I got it 9-10 years ago.

I don't know if there is a 'hard and fast' rule as to tightness of the belt. I would try to snug it up a bit and see what happens. It's possible that, after who knows how long that belt has been on there, it has stretched a bit. I used my FW 'out of the box' so to speak as soon as I got it. I had no clue as to how long that belt may have been on that machine. I took the little darling away with me one weekend to do some sewing and wouldn't you know the belt broke on stitch 3 the first day I planned to sew! Very disappointing weekend for me!

Before adjusting the motor up or down- check to see the belt is seated properly on the motor pulley and there's no thread wrapped around the pulley. I was cleaning up a white 221 I'd purchased that had a rotted and stuck belt. Found the belt had come partially off the pulley and jammed many years ago. I had to remove the motor pulley (teeny set screw) and it was made of plastic. When the belt had jammed on some thread it had jumped partially out of the pulley groove and shattered the back of the pulley wheel.

you might try looking at Nova Montgomery's website, she does tips of the month on featherweights, she is quite informed and has a wealth of info on her site. i also have communicated with her via email when I had a problem, she was helpful.

One more thing. Check to see if the bobbin winder is touching the wheel. That can slow it down if it is. Good luck.

If it's not any of the above it could definitely be the foot pedal.

Those button style foot pedals can go bad on you pretty quickly. Can you beg, borrow, or steal a newer type to try with it? That would be a quick check, and if that doesn't work you can go on to the next possibility. Have you checked for thread wrapped around the hand wheel, spool pin, and bobbin area? FWs don't like even a tiny bit of excess thread around the bobbin. When I got mine it didn't work well - finally found a 1/3" piece of invisible thread caught up behind the bobbin and fixed the problem.