Now what have I done to the Singer 201?
 

So frustrated! When I bought the 201 a couple of weeks ago, it was missing the power cord and the foot control, but once I replaced those, the only problem was that the bobbin tension seemed too tight.

Now I have managed to break it so it doesn't sew at all. (quiet sobbing)

Here's what I did. I was still trying to fix the tension. I first thought I was threading it wrong, but I wasn't, so I decided to take out the bobbin case and clean everything. It seemed to go back together fine and I was happy with everything being all nice and shiny. I put a drop of oil where the bobbin rests and all seemed to be moving okay and in the right place. But when I first pushed the foot peddle, it didn't start to sew - just made a noise. I turned the wheel toward me to get it started, but it just made a small knot and the fabric didn't move. I took out the fabric and just turned the wheel by hand. The feed dogs moved. The bobbin threads okay. However, when I turn the wheel, it goes about a quarter turn and then gets very stiff. It seems like the stitch length control wants to move at the stiff point - if I loosen the lever, the stitch length lever moves when I turn the wheel. I don't want to make anything worse by forcing it, but the wheel will keep moving; it's just harder to turn. I held the machine tilted up and looked at the bottom while I turned the wheel and everything looked like it was moving okay.

I'm not sure which thing I did was the problem. Besides the bobbin cleaning, I was just trying to check things the other day and I couldn't get the wheel loosened enough to stop the needle going up and down (I was doing this as if I was going to wind a bobbin and wanted to disengage the needle). So, I did keep turning the small silver wheel quite a few times, but it never got looser than the first bit of turning had done and the needle kept moving. I did this all by hand and finally gave it up and tightened it again. I haven't tried to use the machine until today after the bobbin case disassembly, so I don't know if all the wheel turning might have done something...

I desperately hope someone can help. I'm afraid to try anything else at this point.

Thank you!

The needle is inserted flat side to the left, and threads right to left.

The other problem sounds like the most common 201 issue: The machine can get a load of thread tangled under the bobbin case before it stops working and it sounds like you've just hit that point.
Can you easily pull the bobbin thread through the throat plate? It should always be looser than the top thread. If you can't, the tension spring probably needs to be adjusted.
I bought one about a year ago that had a huge tangle of thread and dust bunnies underneath the bobbin. Disassembly of the case is pretty simple, and if you do this, lubricate as you reassemble.

Don't worry though, 201s are one of the toughest machines every made, so you won't have broken it permanently.

I disassembled the entire bobbin case and it actually was pretty clean, but I cleaned every last bit and oiled and reassembled. The bobbin tension could probably be a little looser, but it's hard to tell for sure since I can't get it to sew. I have the needle in with the flat side to the left and threaded right to left. The problem with stiffness in the wheel occurs even with the machine completely unthreaded.

You can still tell without sewing: Just pull it (through the needle plate) toward the left of the machine with your fingers. It should have only enough resistance to be noticed, not to turn your fingernails white.
The stiffness in the wheel seems to be linked to the feed dog movement then. Set it to zero and see if it moved freely. Does dropping the feed dog help or make no difference? Look at the feed dog mechanism under the machine where the drop knob resides while turning the hand wheel.

The stiffness is obviously your major problem and when you fix this chances are the other problems will simply go away. I'd guess that an object is possibly stuck in the FD mechanism.

I had a 201 that wouldn't move at all - I cleaned and oiled everything, including tearing down the bobbin area - finally pulled the motor off - the motor was frozen up. It totally disintegrated when we took it off the machine. We pulled a motor off a 15, rebuilt it and the machine turned perfectly. Sometimes you just have hours in them until you get them to work right. There can be a bit of dried up oil in the motor making it move kind of crunchy.

Thanks very much, Mike and Miriam! It works! And it's happy!

When I took off the needle plate and turned the wheel by hand, all seemed fine - feed dogs moving, etc. So I put the needle plate back, threaded and tried again. No movement, just a knot.

Then, a dim memory came back. As I was cleaning and oiling, i had twisted the knob on top for the presser foot pressure - just to see if it was stuck. It wasn't. But I didn't twist it back again. So, I loosened it up and that was it!! It sewed perfectly fine. And, the bobbin case cleaning and adjustment fixed the tension problem. Before cleaning and slightly adjusting the bobbin tension, I had the top tension all the way to 9 and was still getting a flat bottom thread. Now the top tension is on 3 and the stitches are perfect. Can't wait to actually sew something.

Oh, also, when the wheel was stiff, I think I may have put the needle plate on slightly askew and it may have been interfering with the feed dog movement. Just a theory, but when I started to unscrew it, it seemed to pop into place when I loosened the screws. I don't know if that would have affected the wheel movement, but as soon as the needle plate was off, the wheel turned with no resistance.

Thanks again. This board has been so wonderful and helpful. Even though I get myself in trouble fooling around with things, it's great to have the confidence to keep trying because I have such terrific people to help!

Enjoy the 201! Very hard to break. Pieces like a dream. I have resuscitated two of the and prefer to do piecing on it instead of the 15-91, which I use for making purses or heavier sewing because of the vertical bobbin instead of the 201s horizontal bobbin.

So glad you got it figured out. I'm not a Singer gal but I love, love my 201-2. It was my first Singer and while I've been slowly getting rid of most of my Singers, they'll have to pry this one out of my cold dead hands, lol. Or bury me with it.

Cari

You're welcome. It makes sense that the plate was in the way. There's no way you were going to force the plate up with the feed dog. Pretty sure I've done it on a machine.

201s are the best model and last just about forever so I know you'll get a lot of good use from it.