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Bobbin Case Area

Today I took apart the bobbin case area.  The first steps were to remove the presser foot, needle, throat plate and slide plate.  These were very straight forward as it only involved removing the thumbscrews and two throat plate screws.  Here are the before and after pictures:

The Assembly Manual then says to remove the bobbin case which requires you to “Rotate the balance wheel until end of rotating hook bobbin case retaining ring is toward front of machine”.  Well, I can’t do this since Ms. Rusty is so locked up (or rusty) that the gears won’t turn so I moved on to the next step – removing the feed dogs.

Then removed the rotating hook bobbin case position plate, which gave me pretty much free access to the whole rotating hook and bobbin case.

I then removed the rotating hook screw. This exposed the rotating hook position pin which is even more visible (not surprisingly) after lifting out the rotating hook, bobbin case and all. Isn’t all that crud underneath there just lovely?

  

Now that the bobbin case and rotating hook were out of the machine, it was relatively easy to unsnap the bobbin case from the rotating hook.

At this point it was a simple matter of cleaning the crud and grease off the parts with a bit of kerosene, followed by an over-night soak in Evapo-rust. 

After kerosene and before Evapo-rust   

And after a overnight soak in ER:

Now that these parts are clean and shiny they will be ready to put back into Ms. Rusty when it is time for reassembly.

Evapo-Rust to the Rescue!

Remember these very rusty bobbin winder parts?  Well, I decided to these to test out my new bottle of Evapo-Rust. 

 

After only a quick 40 minute soak it was already clear this product was working well

 

Soaking them for an additional overnight soak, the difference was nothing short of amazing!

 

I then turned my attention to my chrome trim pieces.  I had previously used Turtle Wax Chrome Polish And Rust Remover and was reasonably satisfied with the results.  However, it required a ton of elbow grease and I still couldn’t get all the rust off the nooks and crannies of these pieces – especially the rear plate cover.  After taking these pieces and soaking them in Evapo-Rust for a few hours they look nearly brand new!

Before:        After: 

If you look really close you will notice that there is still some residual rust on the edge of the face plate, so I may give it another soaking just to evaporate the last bit of rust

I am now officially an Evapo-Rust fan!

I Love Evapo-Rust!

Sorry, no pictures in this post, but I couldn't wait to tell you how much I love Evapo-Rust!  I put some parts in this wonder liquid last night and this morning I pulled them out to find them completely Rust Free!  After I get home tonight from work I'll post some pictures.  Trust me, you will be amazed.  Here is a link to the web page for this wonderful stuff, which can be purchased at at your local retailer or from Amazon:  http://www.evapo-rust.com/

P.S.  Alasdair, thank you so very much for recommending this product!

Motor Gear Cleaning and Reassembly

In this post I tackle the ugly job of removing all the nasty, 60+ year old grease gumming up the works in Ms. Rusty’s motor. 

I need to point out that this step really should have been done prior to all the wiring and motor disassembly that I did, but hey, I never claimed to be a professional!  However, because I did this step out of order there were a few precautions that I took, including:  protecting the new wiring from any grease/oil since that can cause premature deterioration, protecting the inside of the motor from any grease/oil since that can cause smoking, deterioration, and all kinds of other problems.

Ok – here we go! I first removed the grease caps which are located at the bottom of the gear case.

I also then removed worm gear by simply lifting it out carefully with a pair of bent nose pliers (recall that the armature was previously removed from the motor).

Then came the nasty job of cleaning the gear area and grease wick area.  This was done with the use of paper towels, Q-tips, toothpicks, and very small amounts of solvent (only when necessary).  The fruits of my labor can be seen below.

I then tried to replace the worm gear, but without all the grease it fell to the bottom and wouldn’t stay put.  So I then tried to put the armature in a bit and then use that to guide the worm gear.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t successful in replace armature, as it felt like something was in the way. 
At this point I felt absolutely stupid because after all this cleaning I had forgotten about the grease wicks, which of course with their springs, were in the way of the armature. 

(Now, if I were really clever and wanted you to think I was a genius I would have re-written this post and re-arranged these pictures to make you think that everything had gone according to plan.  However, life never goes according to plan and I am not a genius.  So I’m going to blog everything just the way it happens – for better or for worse!  Who knows, maybe some of you are reading this blog hoping nothing goes well much like some people watch an accident waiting to happen, or love American Idol tryouts just to watch the bad singers, and if so, I’d hate to disappoint you!  Anyway, I digress…)

Here are photos of one of the grease wicks in it’s tubes (also notice the brush tube to the left) and a picture of both grease wicks after removal from the tubes.

Surprise, surprise, the armature slide right in after grease wicks removed  
  Worm gear replaced 
The adjusters manual tells you to make sure that the “flat” part of the armature shaft can engage one of the two set screws.  The position of the “flat” part of the shaft is indicated by the “flat” at the cover end of the shaft.
  
At this point everything has been cleaned and/or repaired on the motor except for the motor cover.  That has bubbled and pitted paint due to rust and will need to be bead blasted and powder coated (or stripped and painted), but I’m putting it back on for now just to protect the coil and wires on the armature.  Isn’t it pretty?
  

Bobbin Winder Disassembly

Some of you might have noticed the bobbin winder was missing off the motor in the last few posts.  I’ll walk you through how I did it, but first here are some “before” photos so I can remember how to put it all back together again later.
Front View (from the balance wheel side of the machine)
Side view  Top View 
and views from the Back side (side where the motor/balance wheel attaches to the machine) 
You may be wondering why so many photos.  It’s because there isn’t instructions in the Adjusters Manual for this part of the machine.  Also, when I cleaned and replaced this mechanism/assembly on my 15-91 I didn’t take that many photos and I had a bugger of a time putting it back together again.  Eventually I did get everything working again on the 15-91, but not without a lot of cussing, disassembly, reassembly, trial and error.  I’d really like to avoid that this time!
Anyway, the first step is removing the screw that holds the bobbin winder wheel in place.  My bobbin winder tire ring (fat gray thing) is not in great shape so it will need to be replaced.  Fortunately my local sewing machine shop carries these in stock.  If you aren’t so lucky they can also be found online at a very reasonable price (<$1)

The next step was removing the bobbin winder tension bracket screw that holds the bobbin winder tripping arm (silver thing in the shape of a foot) in place.  When I took that off I could then remove the bobbin winder spring.  Unfortunately that spring had sprung and was in two pieces.  The rust had eaten all the way through the metal here  

Finding a replacement spring turned out not to be very difficult.  In fact, you can purchase an entire bobbin winder assembly or just the parts you need from places such as Sew Classic at very reasonable prices (Woo hoo!)
The next thing to do was removing the bobbin winder stop latch which is done by simply removing a single screw.  Note, this part is supposed to be shiny with chrome – not red with rust.  In the next two photos I attempt to show you with the end of a toothpick that there is a tiny hole in the ring portion of this stop latch.

I learned the hard way with my 15-91 that this is important because this hole is used to hold one end of the spring in the recess below the stop latch. That little spring has 2 tiny ends on it – one end fits into a hole into the spring recess and the other end fits into the hole of the bobbin winder stop latch.
 

Hopefully my Evapo Rust will arrive tomorrow, because I am just itching to try it out on these poor rusted bobbin winder parts!

Lamp Wire Repair

This was an easy project, since the lamp was already disassembled. (see previous post)

The first step was pulling the wires out of the leads tube and then measuring their length.  I then cut two new wires, one black and one white, the same length as the old wires, plus one inch so I would have enough room to make rings to connect them to the 3-pin terminal.

Then I removed the bulb contacts from the end of one of the wires by “de-soldering” them from the old wire.  Here are photos of the bulb contacts just before removal.

I re-soldered the bulb contacts to the ends of the new wires.  This takes patience if you are doing this alone.  It is MUCH easier and faster if you have an extra pair of hands to help you hold either the solder, the solder gun the wire, or the bulb contacts .  Holding all 4 at once with just 2 hands is challenging to say the least :)

After that is done, then all you have to do is thread the other end of each wire through the leads tube and either attach brass rings to the end or make rings (I describe how in Motor Rewire Part 2) to connect them to the 3-pin terminal.  Here are photos of the completed project.