441 Clone stitch length lever adjustment question!

[Landcruzer94]

Hi all,

  I have a cowboy cb3200 that I have been adjusting on and off for about 4 years.  Reason being, my stitch lengths in reverse are not consistently hitting the same holes in forward.  I adjusted my machines hook timing to the specs graciously provided by Uwe Grosse, and then adjusted the feed dog cam eccentric touching the stitch lever so that (by Uwe's instruction) at 30* timing when pushing the reversing lever all the way down the needle assembly movesto the rear about 1mm.  That all seems fine and good.

My issue is that at full length of the stitch lever back and forth my needle hits the stitches perfectly, but when I use the threaded collar to lock the stitch length at a certain point it swings more in one direction than the other, messing up the reverse hole alignment again.  In other words, the length in reverse is still going further than forward....

Now if I go by the gate itself, measuring it into equal subdivisions with masking tape and moving the lever to precisely those locations without the collar being used it works perfect.  It seems that it's just the collar that's off?

I'm sure there has to be something off that I'm just not getting.  Any advice???

[Wizcrafts]

@Landcruzer94

I seem to have had this problem right after I got my CB4500. I believe my temporary fix was to loosen the screws on the stitch length nacelle and place a washer under the top, then screw it tight. This somehow corrected to variance between forward and backward stitches which occurred when I was using an accessory throat plate that didn't utilize the feed dog. With the feed dog in use, and standard plate, there is another adjustment inside the base of the machine that makes the holes hit in both directions.

Are you aware that our member, @CowboyBobis the main Cowboy sewing machine dealer in the USA? He knows as much about adjusting them as anybody.

[Landcruzer94]

5 minutes ago, Wizcrafts said:

@Landcruzer94

I seem to have had this problem right after I got my CB4500. I believe my temporary fix was to loosen the screws on the stitch length nacelle and place a washer under the top, then screw it tight. This somehow corrected to variance between forward and backward stitches which occurred when I was using an accessory throat plate that didn't utilize the feed dog. With the feed dog in use, and standard plate, there is another adjustment inside the base of the machine that makes the holes hit in both directions.

Are you aware that our member, @CowboyBobis the main Cowboy sewing machine dealer in the USA? He knows as much about adjusting them as anybody.

Thank you! Yeah I already have one half jacked up with about 1/8in total thickness of washers, and actually running out of thread on the screw!  I figured there was something I'm still missing.  I'll have to call Bob, I actually bought the machine from him back in 2014, I keep forgetting that!

[Tim Schroeder]

 I had to shim the bottom on this 441 clone stitch length lever plate. I took the plate out from underneath the top and started adding shims under the bottom until it hit perfect. Interested to see the adjustment in the base of the machine if anybody shares' that with us.    Here's 13 stitches max stitch length forward then backwards and then forward again. 

[Landcruzer94]

Well thank you to everyone that responded.  I woke up early this morning and poured through a bunch of old threads and located the 441 engineering manual.  Turns out the eccentric was still improperly adjusted. At 30* timing the needle should only move back 1mm when going from full forward to full reverse, the Uwe Grosse tuning video made it seem like it was 1mm from neutral to full reverse, so in all it was moving almost 3-4mm.  Made some more adjustments and wow this thing is bang on throughout the gate and sewing better than it has in a decade.  Super excited I feel like I can finally move on with my life! Lol

Thanks again!

Edited May 18 by Landcruzer94