Maybe in over my head with the 301 - need more help
 

I never got the FMQ situation figured out but I did buy a different kind of foot. But before that I thought the hand wheel wasn't turning smoothly - took it off and what a mess! Hardened grease/oil. I've been working on gently degunking all the parts. Making progress. I'm surprised that is a mess because the rest of the machine was very clean but bone dry.

Question - do I oil all the pieces except the gear when I try to reassemble? I know I will be lubing the gear with the stuff in my precious vintage tube of singer lube.

AH HA! You have my favorite cocktail of solvents there. Hoppe's #9, Tri-Flow oil, and alcohol. Whoo Hooo!

OK, seriously once clean I lightly, emphasis on lightly, oil any metal to metal parts. The drive gear would get Tri-Flow grease since it's easier to get than the Singer grease.

This would be a good place to try that new Singer style grease sold by Nova Montgomery.

Joe

Oh gosh, thanks Joe! The service manual doesn't say what to put on them after they are clean. I do still have my tube of vintage lube in the green metal tube.

By the way, I was in Harbor Freight today getting a gauge I might could use for the timing, if that is an issue and if I can figure out how to do it. I was thinking of trying Nova Montgomery's grease, but, am going to use what I have for now.

This is as far as I've gotten into "innards" except for the 401 but I didn't disassemble anything on that one.

Before you time ANY sewing machine be sure you have exhausted every possible thing that could be causing your troubles.

What Miriam said: ^^^^^^^^^^^

FYI, a ZZ machine that skips stitches can have the mechanism gummed up so it's not free to place the needle where it belongs. Clean 'em sanitary before you "fix" 'em.


Joe

[ATTACH=CONFIG]489312[/ATTACH]Well I made it nice and clean. Having a bit of a situation trying to put it back. Don't have a good tool to put the round thing back on and fingers not strong. Waiting for Mr. stitchnripper to get home and see if he can help.

Reporting in that I got another foot and this one works better, however, it has to be on the fabric for it to make a stitch. That purple one didn't put enough pressure on the fabric, so back it goes. It is not a flowy process for the FMQ like on my dinky mechanical Brother, and if I rig the FMQ foot to hover just so slightly over the fabric, then the machine doesn't make a stitch. It is much quieter since I cleaned the hand wheel. No hitches now.

The purple one you have, it is the "BigFoot" FMQ foot? I have one of those and it skips stitches on my 301. If I change nothing other than the foot - ANY other FMQ foot I've tried - works on the 301. I suspect that it's a little too tight a foot and hangs up every once in a while and does what you're talking about - if it hovers, it skips. I've considered modifying the foot, but I really don't have that energy at the moment. ;)

So, if your dinky Brother does FMQ to your satisfaction, why are you worrying with trying to make your 301 do it? The 301 is so perfect for piecing; but never mind me, I have a Gammill that spends a lot of time making me crazy. It has a tension "tic" and all I want to do when I get ready to quilt is load the rollers, use same thread on top and bobbin, and go to town. Oh no, gotta do the test runs, and quilt the first run, roll it real quick and run around to the other side of the machine and check for birds eyes.....I say run around to the other side of the machine because I am not very tall, and can't just look across at the roller to check for them.

Thanks for your comments. I do love the dinky Brother but the 301 has more throat space which I think would be helpful.