I'll see if I have the bobbin mechanism around. I have a few machines here for parts, but I can't remember if any of them are self winding. If they are, I can either try a disassembly, with pictures, or send you the mechanism.

I like the idea of the twist apart, as emptying a bobbin, but I wind more often than I manually empty. It was good though when my dad bought me a machine and I had 3 bobbins only.

I have two, one free arm and the other cab mod. I love them both. Everything is with both, all the attachments oil,cams, tools, i did have to get more bobbins, JoAnn's had some. Bobbins just don't hold much thread tho. Use FW most of the time for straight stitch. But i do love that auto bobbin refill. Just a neat thing.

Actually the free arm is a 771. Both has worked great for years.

Thank You arcehicarcane! Your input is proving invaluable!!! :)

before you try to turn it, go through and oil any remtely moving part with nothing else but Triflow oil -you don"t want to take a chance on breaking plastic gears by forcing it to move - hopefully nobody used 3 in 1 oil on it

I've been useing singers machine oil. :) the oil underneath the cam was black oddly enough. Like motor oil. I wonder if it eventually turns dark? But yes I have oiled every where the manual said to oil and the a few other places that looked to have moving parts.

I've noticed a number of machines here that the oil turned black. I think what happens is the machine runs "Dry" once or twice. A little bit of "debris" is formed from the joints rubbing on each other and when the machine is oiled next again, it's the mixing of the oil and the debris that makes it turn black. It's especially bad where the grease is used on the gears if the gears ran dry and someone was over enthusiastic with the next greasing. I'll look for the picture of my 401 before I cleaned it up. There was black stuff flung everywhere, it was nasty.

thank you so much Archaic! :) thats what i figured too! or that it just turns murky and dirty with age (like car oil)

It probably does. There's bound to be some friction regardless of the oil.

Here, at least it probably didn't look like this:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]369009[/ATTACH]

The lid was covered too, on the inside. Over all, it was a really grubby machine when I got it. I thought, it'll never be a show piece, but it will be a great work horse.... it cleaned up really well though. OxiClean is what saved it.

Oxyclean??? What did you use oxyclean on? (it saved a kewpie doll for me. but never thought of trying it on metal?)