Questions about upper tension, motor
 

Hi!

After about a year with my Singer 223, I've finally gotten brave enough recently to get into the guts of it to clean and actually oil it. It's sewn fine for the most part, and I wouldn't say that at any point I felt like something was seriously wrong internally, so I didn't really think it was necessary to mess around inside. There were still some things that bothered me so that's what I have some questions about....

1. The upper tension wasn't releasing with the presser foot up. It turns out that the plastic +/- indicator is missing the tiny center piece that is supposed to rest inside the tension stud. You can see the little chip in the plastic where it's broken off in the picture below. I'm wondering if there is any cheap-y crafty way to avoid having to buy a new tension assembly or even just the indicator separately. Would it be enough to replace the release pin with a longer finishing nail? Or is that bit of plastic really necessary? Has anyone successfully glued some kind of makeshift thingy into their indicator?

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2. My motor has been unusually loud this past week, and today I found this little object (in the picture, below the indicator) rattling around inside and was able to just shake it out. I've had some similar moments of noisiness in the past, so it's probably been in there the whole time I've had this machine. What is this? Is it important? My machine still runs and has always run. The motor sounds improved, I guess.

Anyway, thanks!

Is there noise coming from the motor or from the gear box behind the bobbin? On my 223 the gear box is open to the bobbin side so I would open that up and clean out the gear box. It could stress the motor if it full of lint and dried up oil. Then I would put as much grease back in as you take out. Vaseline should do the job nicely.
You can buy a whole new tension on line if you need to. A tension from an old derelict might be made to fit as well. It won't match but the machine should work ok. You can also figure that a Singer 66 only has a couple parts so put it together like that and see how she sews. You don't have numbers on a 66 so you do have to go by how it feels to adjust the tension.
Those are nice machines. I like the ss, zz, and blind hem abilities. I'm thinking it would be nice on a treadle if the motor goes out.

The noise was coming from the rattling of that red-orange thing in the picture. The noise went away after I shook it out. Hopefully it's not an important part! I'm amazed the motor has been able to run all that time with it floating around inside.

I actually ended up removing some of the grease that was in the gear box. The whole thing was filled with it. I should probably go back and do a thorough cleaning and re-greasing instead someday. I do worry about the opening to the bobbin area and all that stuff that could fall in from there. I wonder if the excessive amount of grease was meant to provide a barrier of sorts. It was actually green-colored and looked a bit like an encasing of jello or something. It was quite a sight.

That little red-orange thing is a strain relief for the cord.....it was pushed on/around the cord right inside the case to prevent the cord from getting pulled loose from the outside of the case. Apparently it was loose & fell off. It should be squeezed snuggly around the wire.