Singer 201-2 Making a Weird Clicking/Popping Noise
 

My Singer 201-2 is making a pinging/snapping noise once per stitch. After playing with it for a while, I was able to narrow it down to the bobbin area. Taking things apart, it turns out that the noise is occurring when the upper thread pulls off the bobbin case's finger. The bobbin case can float in rotation just a little bit before the finger hits the positioning plate. I don't know if that's supposed to happen or not so I showed it in the video below. When the thread pulls up from the position in the picture below, I get the plinking or snapping sound. I included that in the video by turning the handwheel by hand. Any idea how to get it to stop making this noise?

https://i.imgur.com/8IFApL8.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a2dBqwoCjw

If I was having a similar problem, I would check out http://vssmb.blogspot.com/2011/07/20...g-ring-re.html and make sure all the parts were in the correct position. For some reason, I'm thinking the clips are not quite right.

Is it stitching on fabric okay, just making a noise? I remember that I did have some issues with one of my 201s in the bobbin area, getting it back together correctly.

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

Oh, yeah, it stitches perfectly fine. Everything looks good, just makes a funny noise.

Janey & John, that was a great blog post! Thanks for posting.

Williaty, the thread passage is pinched. The "Position Plate" needs to be loosened and re-positioned. The "shark fin" is too close to the position plate toward the front of your picture. The last picture of the blog post shows the correct position.

We see this a lot with the new drop-in, plastic bobbin baskets, too.

How can you actually control that, though? The Position Plate has nearly no play on the screws but, more importantly, the bobbin case rotates and closes that gap as soon as the machine starts moving. If you say that I should be able to open that gap up and keep it open, I've got to be missing something.

FWIW, Singer's own Adjuster's Manual for this machine says to take the Position Plate and push it all the way towards the back of the machine and then all the way to the right to locate it in order to make the largest possible gap between the *back* side of the fin on the bobbin case and the Position Plate.

Before you do any major adjustments, make sure you have taken out the bobbin case and scrape all corners, edges, grooves clean with a tooth pick. Spray can oil can dissolve a lot of old muck, and on an old fix up machine it can be a bit of a chore to get it up to standard. Do the same for the groove in the needle bar, behind the needle clamp. Your machine looks very clean, but it's a common issue, second and even third rounds of cleaning and poking down there have solved problems. The bobbin case is suppose to be able to wiggle a little.

Have you gone through the machine from one and to another? Sometimes it can be a bit tricky to track down exactly where the noise comes from, it's very consistent though, spot on the same upper needle position. Do you get the same noise with out thread? Look for dents, burrs and scratches along the thread path. It's a bit of a detective job.

I cleaned up the bobbin case, hook assembly, and pretty much everything else before the first time I tried to do anything but I can always go over it again.

The noise happens Only when the top thread is in the needled and actually gets caught by the hook. Pull the top thread out of the needle (but leave it in everything else) and there's no noise. Pull the top thread in a direction where the hook can't catch it and there's no noise. The noise is definitely coming from the thread pulling out from between the bobbin case finger and the positioning plate. With everything taken apart, it's really easy to hear exactly where it's coming from.

There should be "play" around the shark fin, but I'm assuming that the position plate would be more adjustable -- like on other sewing machines. Is there a burr on the fin or the plate? Are you using good thread?

I'm using Gutterman thread from JoAnn, which is really Gutterman Mara 30 without the fancy name on it, so yes.

I checked for burs and didn't find anything. This is quite perplexing as everything seems right and yet.... plink... plink... plink...

I looked at the adjuster's manual. I personally probably would just leave it that way, unless the thread kept breaking while sewing. I am not sure, but if the position plate doesn't have any adjustment, than perhaps the case. hook or hook shaft is out of alignment. It seems to me that if the hook or hook shaft were out of position that there would be some issue would be found while sewing.

just a thought

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.