Issues with Brother Charger 441
 

Hi guys! I'm new here, so I'm sorry if I messed up and posted this in the wrong place, but I'm desperate. (Sorry for the long post, I just want to make sure I detail all of the steps we took).

I am hoping to get into quilting as there are a few projects I'd rather tackle myself than pay someone else to complete, but I need to get my sewing machine in order first.

A few years ago, my best friend's mom (basically my second mom) gave me a vintage Brother Charger 441. It's a cute little machine and is in pristine condition given its age (it actually came with the manual, thank goodness). Unfortunately, whenever I attempt to use it, everything goes perfectly for a few minutes and then it jams up. The first time this happened, I chalked it up to user error (it'd been several years since I'd used a sewing machine at the time), so I unjammed the machine, threaded a different bobbin, and continued with the project. A few minutes later, it jammed up again. Still chalking it up to user error, I untangled the threaded mess and reset everything and called my friend into the room to have her look at it. She assured me everything was threaded correctly, and gave it a go herself. Everything seemed fine, so I figured I'd just done slightly different before and had correct the error. I continued working on the project, making sure I went slowly in case I had been going too quickly before for the old machine, but it jammed up again anyway.

At this point, I was feeling better about my sewing skills, but worse about the fact that the machine was broken. The next time my friend's parents came to visit, her mom took it home to have it fixed. She took it to a local shop and they assured her it was fine (I can't remember if they actually replaced anything or not that time), so she took it home to try it out for herself. Now, this woman has an entire room of her house for her sewing projects, so she's no novice. She tested the machine out and ran into the same issue I had (thread explosion). She tried troubleshooting it herself to no avail. She found another shop to look at it, but they once again tested it and assured her there was nothing wrong.

There is one more shop here in town that could service the machine, but I was hoping some of you might have some insight on what might be wrong, since I know from experience that it's easier to get experts and repairmen to take a problem they can't see seriously if you can nudge them towards the solution. We think the cover plate might need replacement, which would be easy enough, but I'd like to know if there is anything I can look for to confirm or rule out that diagnosis before I hunt down a replacement and spend money on one.

It's frustrating, to say the least, because my second mom checked that everything worked before she bought it (I have the sample stitching), and the machine will work for a few minutes before jamming up, which is why I think they aren't finding a problem when we take it in for service. The needle or thread is catching on something creating a tangled mess that has to be taken out and dealt with before moving on, which is obviously not conducive for anything more complicated (or fun) than hemming pants.

tl;dr dastardly sewing machine only screws up when no one else is watching and makes me look crazy. HELP!

Cari is our resident Brother expert. If it's anything like a Dodge Charger I'd expect great things :thumbup:

Hahaha love it!

I'm also wondering if there's a place to post manuals on this site? My search for other Charger 441 threads lead to two threads about needing a manual, and I have one.

There is, but QB doesn't host them, so you'd have to upload to, say, Google drive or something. There's a sticky post you can post the URL to.

Thinking, thinking, give me a few minutes.

Cari

I just tried to edit my first post and had a whole long message typed . Guess where it went? Anyway, I'm not too awake yet but here's what I'm thinking.
Brother machines don't normally jam up, they just don't, so something is going on. The fact that it's intermittent is why the repairmen haven't caught it. Check every part of the hook/race assembly for a scratch or burr, anything that would catch the thread. Make sure that you're loading the bobbin into the bobbin case the right way. The only other thing I can think of right now is maybe the upper tension check spring is not working properly, either worn out or not assembled right.

Cari

Could she be loading the bobbin too full?

I don't think that would cause it. It's a typical class 15. I've not had a bobbin winder on any of my vintage Brothers that would wind a bobbin so full that it wouldn't turn in the case.

Cari

The only times my Brother machines have jammed like that is when the little felt thingy behind the bobbin somehow came loose and got tangled up in the thread causing a jam. I had to glue it back down and let it dry before I could sew anymore on that machine. By the way, I have 3 Brother machines, and I had this happen on 2 of them. But if you're able to sew at all before it jams, I don't have a clue as to what could cause it.....hope you get it repaired soon, so you can enjoy your machine! I guess you can see I love mine!

Oh, I'm in no way an expert on any machine, but I am a satisfied customer.....:)

Debbie, I'm curious. Are your machines newer ones with drop in bobbins? The only Brother I own with a drop in bobbin is an old embroidery machine(PE200 Snoopy version) and it doesn't have any felt behind the bobbin that I can remember.(I haven't used it since I got it almost a year ago). The Charger machine being asked about is an end loading zig zag machine that uses a regular bobbin case, not a drop in bobbin.
I'm not an expert by any means either, just a big fan of the vintage Brothers and have several.

Cari