Help with a Juki LS-1341

[mcmuck]

Hi Folks! I've been leather working for about 5 years now, I'm retired, so it's a spare time thing. When I started I bought a used "serviced" Juki as it was the most copied machine out there. As it turned out it was well used and poorly serviced. My back ground is mechanics so I set about making it right. I was able to make it better but definetly not perfect, every 6 months or so I would take another run at it : ) I replaced the timing belt as it looked like it was going to fall off, a ton of chowdered and missing fastners, installed a lot of the missing oiling system etc. I've watched Uwe's making a stitch video about a thousand times and I've managed to make progress. There are two things I can't sort out. In the service manual, engineering guide the needle bar length for hook timing is listed as 59mm +- I cannot set mine there, in order for the needle to be in the correct location I have to set it at 50mm. At first I thought I was doing something wrong etc but the manual is clear about where to measure so I'm confused about that. The second thing is If I center the needle in the feed dog longitudinally the throat plate is 3mm from contacting the body of the machine. I have gone through the manual start to finish but there is no way that I see to move the needle bar assy toward the rear. If someone with experience with this machine could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it. I replaced the needle bar with a new one I ordered from Juki (along with a bunch of other things) and it came identical to the one that was in my machine. This machine has had numerous sketchy repairs over time but the actual linkage and mechanism appears to be sound and original. I've identified and repaired most of them but these two things elude me : ) Stay Safe! Oh and if this the wrong place for this I'm sorry, go ahead and move it to where it should be.

Kelly McLaughlin

Medicine Hat Alberta

Canada 

[shoepatcher]

Pics of the needle bar and the throat plate alignment.

glenn

[mcmuck]

Sorry for the delay, went back at it and realized that what I thought was obvious really wasn't. I realized what I thought was the ledge to use as a reference wasn't really, in my defence the repair guy I hired didn't figure that out either : ) After a ton of study I can only come to the conclusion that at some point the Throat plate base has been modified to make the throat plate sit closer to the hook. I"ve replaced the Hook, throat plate, feed dog, needle bar and bobbin cover / cap. By placing the feed dog and throat plate where it would be aligned properly I added about .060 to the surface on the throat plate base where the throat plate with hard solder and machined them parallel. that has worked but I've not been able to source a throat plate base since I've owned this machine mine is the original I'm sure and the plating is peeling off so I'd like to get one just for that reason. I'll take some pics tomorrow and post them Glenn again sorry for the delay.