Help! Presser foot not moving, needle foot going wrong direction, Techsew 4100

[RockyAussie]

6 hours ago, YinTx said:

Right now, I am getting it to stitch, feet march correctly, both feet lift, backstitching works, tension is good, only complaint I have is the rear presser foot seems to be a bit jerky moving up and down, not too smooth at all.  It is very well oiled, so not that.

Have a look at this before you go any further as it will only take a minute to find out. With your presser feet down, take the top foot pressure adjustment thing right out as shown below -

Then lift the feet up and the spring will be easy to grab out

With the Cowboy machines they come with 2 different springs, one for softer work and one for the hard stuff which is most likely the one you have in there.

These buggars are not squared off on the end like they should be. This shows one end -

this shows the other -

Sometimes if you are lucky one end will be near to square and if you put the squared off end in first you may find that the feet now don't bind up on the shaft when they lift. When the spring is under pressure and it is not squared off it pushes the coil above on an angle enough to make it rub a lot into the presser bar shaft which is what I have found the problem to be previously.

What I do to rectify is sand them down until they are flat and to make that easy I have a wooden block with a squared off notch attached to the bed of my belt sander as shown

Then on and off I sand it down until its fairly level on both ends.

This has worked very well to fix this issue for me so I would do it first before adjusting anything further.

P.S. I broke a needle a couple of months back myself but I'm not telling anyone here about that

[alpha2]

Hey, Rocky, no need to describe how you broke a needle, it's enough to know you do that, too!

[YinTx]

On 11/15/2021 at 3:21 AM, RockyAussie said:

This has worked very well to fix this issue for me so I would do it first before adjusting anything further.

 

The impatient side of me took over, and I did the other adjustments first.  The spring looks like it could be squared off, so I'll have to get a grinder out and get after it.  I've been out of commission here for a couple of days, I'm semi-back.  A lot of adjusting on this machine, including having to center the needle over the feed dog - it was hitting the back of the hole!  Had to figure out where that adjustment was on my own, I didn't see anything in literature or in YouTube that had it.  Doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that I couldn't find it.  Suffice to say, I found the screw to turn.

Adjusted the presser foot to needle foot timing some more, needle bar height,  hook timing again, took the hook out and removed the burr and scratches, then polished it up with 2000 grit, cleaned the race, put everything back together, and seems to be stitching pretty good.  At least the best it has ever stitched, considering the foot coordination is finally right probably for the first time in it's existence.  I was able to stitch up the stockings I was making, but unfortunately am unable to get it to backstitch - the hook will not catch the thread off the needle in reverse.  Suspect it needs more hook timing adjustments?  On the plus side, it is not shredding thread anymore.  I'm feeling confident enough in the progress of the machine to go looking for some 794 needles in different sizes!  I'll post up a video of it running as soon as I can, perhaps someone can see something it isn't doing correctly that I am unaware of.  Thank you all for the continued help.

 Still troubleshooting the inability to backstitch, the odd alignment of the linkages to get the presser foot to lift, and the clunky clunk noise it makes as it lifts the presser foot.

YinTx

[RockyAussie]

8 minutes ago, YinTx said:

Still troubleshooting the inability to backstitch, the odd alignment of the linkages to get the presser foot to lift, and the clunky clunk noise it makes as it lifts the presser foot.

Sounds like some progress. The clunky noise just may be that spring being bent over into the presser bar shaft as it lifts. I would do that squaring up first. If it is not missing going forward but is in reverse ....I have to ask what needle size thread size and point tip you are running???

It may be just that the the needle is not angled right. A picture would help. It may be that if your using a light gauge needle it is too far away from the hook. That can be adjusted with shims normally but I you may not want to do that in a hurry if you are planning on using a thicker needle and thread combination. I don't think that any timing adjustments will come into it if it stitches forward but not in reverse. Make sure you are using a new needle.

[RockyAussie]

Had another thought........If you loosen your presser foot off enough to lift the feet up with your thumbs (that is often about the right setting on light stuff for me) when you lift them up high does your top back tension discs open up. In other words when you are stitching something thicker than 3/8" does that top back tension discs open up some??

[RockyAussie]

On 11/16/2021 at 4:59 AM, alpha2 said:

Hey, Rocky, no need to describe how you broke a needle, it's enough to know you do that, too!

Hep.... luckily I'm not a commercial pilot flight instructor I reckon Or firearms instructor either I spose. Well I missed by ....that much or would you believe ....................that much?

Edited November 19, 2021 by RockyAussie

[toxo]

On 11/14/2021 at 11:47 PM, YinTx said:

I have this part adjusted to where the point sticks out about 1mm.  I am studying the following video to see if the eccentric cam has slipped on the shaft...  at the 1:40 mark, my machine is doing the opposite of what @Uwe indicates it should be at, which may explain why the feet move opposite of what they should.  I'm trying to figure out how to adjust this cam...

 

This video helps my problem but the two screws that Uwe is call the eccenter look the same to me except one of them is in a groove in the shaft so I figured I shouldn't mess with that. The Singer 111 service manual says loosen one and turn the other to move the outside presser foot but I got no joy doing that. I'll have another go doing it Uwe's way even if I have to move the screw out of the groove.

[YinTx]

On 11/18/2021 at 8:35 PM, RockyAussie said:

Sounds like some progress. The clunky noise just may be that spring being bent over into the presser bar shaft as it lifts. I would do that squaring up first. If it is not missing going forward but is in reverse ....I have to ask what needle size thread size and point tip you are running???

It may be just that the the needle is not angled right. A picture would help. It may be that if your using a light gauge needle it is too far away from the hook. That can be adjusted with shims normally but I you may not want to do that in a hurry if you are planning on using a thicker needle and thread combination. I don't think that any timing adjustments will come into it if it stitches forward but not in reverse. Make sure you are using a new needle.

I did have to do some more timing adjustments after all that, and in general it will catch the thread on backstitching now.  It does still miss occasionally, maybe something I am doing wrong as an operator?  I am using a 794 needle, size 23, with a 207 thread in this latest run.  Brand new, just got the package this week in the mail.  The other needle as far as I know was new, but was a size 25 and if I recall correctly, was using a 277 thread.

 

On 11/18/2021 at 8:50 PM, RockyAussie said:

Had another thought........If you loosen your presser foot off enough to lift the feet up with your thumbs (that is often about the right setting on light stuff for me) when you lift them up high does your top back tension discs open up. In other words when you are stitching something thicker than 3/8" does that top back tension discs open up some??

I did not see the back plates opening at all when stitching heavy leather.  I'll see what happens when I lift it with my thumbs next time I'm working with it.  Currently, the presser foot does not raise very much, if I adjust the feet to allow this, it results in binding.  I still have to take the presser foot spring and grind it flat, we'll see how that goes.  Meanwhile, I did manage to successfully stitch this bible cover with it!

YinTx

[kgg]

4 hours ago, YinTx said:

I did have to do some more timing adjustments after all that, and in general it will catch the thread on backstitching now.  It does still miss occasionally, maybe something I am doing wrong as an operator?  I am using a 794 needle, size 23, with a 207 thread in this latest run.

I think the the problem of missed stitches and catching on the back stitching is the size of needle for the size of thread you are using. A good reference for needle selection would be the one Toledo has on their website ( tolindsewmach.com/thread-chart.html ). For V207 you would need a #24 or possibly a #25 needle for thick / sticky / multi layers to create a hole large enough so the top thread can be caught correctly by the hook.

kgg

 

[RockyAussie]

14 minutes ago, kgg said:

I think the the problem of missed stitches and catching on the back stitching is the size of needle for the size of thread you are using. A good reference for needle selection would be the one Toledo has on their website ( tolindsewmach.com/thread-chart.html ). For V207 you would need a #24 or possibly a #25 needle for thick / sticky / multi layers to create a hole large enough so the top thread can be caught correctly by the hook.

kgg

 

You just beat me on that almost word for word.