Champanier

The stitch length knob on my White 3954 was really stiff - I could barely turn it - so I tried to fix it.

Bad.

I lubricated from every angle first. I went up the arm from the bottom with the needle oiler and tried to hit the right spot. Then I went in from the hole under the wheel. Nothing seemed to make a difference.

So, I thought I'd take the faceplate off the stitch length knob and see whether I could reach another spot to oil. Well, it did feel funny - like there was pressure - as I was unscrewing, but I was trying to hold everything carefully in place. Uh huh. When the last screw came out, so did the knob along with a whole tube with "parts". I tried very hard to understand exactly how it came out and keep it together. I oiled everything some more and then tried to put it back together. Nope.

Please excuse my lack of correct terminology from now on. There is a pivoting arm that connects to the stitch length tube and reverse sliding bar with two short shafts. That pivoting arm moved when the rest came out, and I can't figure out how to get it back in place, particularly since I lack 8" long fingers.

DH managed to get the part that controls the reverse into the little sliding fork where it fits, but the other short shaft (closer to the front - I think it relates to the stitch length control) seems to me to be in the wrong place. The red indicator for the stitch length is too far to the left and the knob doesn't move at all now. The reverse button works (or seems to) now, but I'm not going to try to run it until things are in the right place.

For now, I put the faceplate back on to hold everything in place until I figure out what I'm doing. It's challenging because the part that controls the Reverse slides back and forth while I'm trying to fit the shaft into the fork. Now that DH has that in place, it would be great if I could maneuver the pivoting arm so that it was less vertical, which would bring the other small shaft forwards.

I know this is not described ideally, so I drew a picture to try to explain it. The part with the red "X" is the part that I think should pivot up and forwards, although it's still not clear to me what holds it in place on the tube.

I also attached a photo, but a lot of the parts are blocked by other pieces, so I can't get a clear shot. The photo of the faceplate is the wrong one - this was from before I broke things - now the needle is all the way at the far left, below the number 5.

If anyone has the same, or a similar, machine, could you possibly remove the top and take a photo straight down of where things are supposed to be?

Thanks very much!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]501822[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]501823[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]501824[/ATTACH]

Champanier

Here's what the indicator looks like now.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]501827[/ATTACH]

KenmoreRulesAll

Hey, Linda --

I have several White machines that are similar. Here is the 765 that is a simple zig-zag, very much like yours:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]501830[/ATTACH]

Here are pictures of the reverse and length mechanism shown from above:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]501833[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]501834[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]501836[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]501837[/ATTACH]

Champanier

Thank you so much! That's perfect. So I think I have things generally in the right place, but I think I just need to somehow rotate the tube a little to the right without losing the connection for the reverse, which doesn't have much room for error. We had a hard time getting it to stay in place. But your photos are exactly what I needed.

And, what a beautiful White you have! Thanks again!

KenmoreRulesAll

You're very welcome. Let me know if you need more pictures, a different angle, etc. And thanks, yes, I like it too and I like yours very much. I've never been able to find a turquoise White at a price I was willing to pay.