Just clean up the camstack
You need a thin bead of grease about the size of a kite string along the gears. You do not need to gob it on.
Sew-classic has darning feet - you need slant feet.

Miriam, just clean what I can reach? What about between the cams? Use the tri flow for that? And you think I'll be able to FMQ? I saw a slant foot at Hancock's but wasn't sure.

Wipe it off well - you can use a brush or q-tip if you wish between cams - Tri-Flow is good but not necessary. It may need a bit of oil or grease on the readers.

I don't like the 401 for FM - you can get slant darning feet. I have an old 15 clone I really like for free motion

What Miriam said about the grease and such.

There is one thing (possibly 2) that the "Best Machine Singer ever made" doesn't do well.
1. FMQ
2. stretch knits (they didn't exist when these machines were made, and the best stretch knit machines seem to be able to go side to side and back and forth in a stitch. The slant-o-matic only goes side to side)

The dogs don't drop because the elevator plate moves up. Like Miriam, I have other machines that can do it, so I haven't bothered to try.

I have heard that you can't FMQ on it, but I'm not sure why. The manual shows all sorts of free motion embroidery and monogramming and darning, it's the same basic process.

a 66 / 99 / 201 can FMQ - they've got the horizontal bobbin (all to the left of the needle though)
a 301 can FMQ - it's got the slant needle.

it must be something about the combination of the two, or perhaps that the thread has to go "backwards" vs threading towards the bobbins on the other horizontal bobbin machines that FMQ...

Lots of people don't drop the dogs to FMQ, including Leah Day.
http://www.daystyledesigns.com/doiha...myfeeddogs.htm

If you're going to try it, I would not bother to raise the elevator plate, set stitch length to 0, and practice on something that doesn't matter. I've been making cat/dog blankets out of my practice sandwiches,...

I have 2 slant darning feet. One I like and one I don't. I have the singer one that came with the 431 (like your 401, but with an open arm, and it chain stitches) I like it, and one that lots of the sites sell (including sew-classic http://shop.sew-classic.com/Singer-S...KED-P60417.htm). I don't like this one, I feel like I can't see what's going on with it. But it's possible you could do surgery on it like Leah Day does on the other "Generic" foot for the low shank machines.

I have tried FM on the 401 - I just like the clone better - maybe it is the foot.

If you want to sew knits get a gold band needle - it might do better - yeah the patterns only go one direction - not so good for stretch.

I just sold a machine last night - it was a Phoenix. That one had a really neat FM foot setup. It had a little lever on the back of the machine - did a great job of FM. I originally wanted to keep that machine but a little gal came along and it just seemed like a perfect match for her. I'm thinking she will be very happy with that one. The more I saw of that machine the more I loved it. I have my Singer 403... and a herd of others.

And it works? How well? I assumed because everyone always says they're not good for FMQ, that the skipped stitches etc, just made them not worth the effort...

Maybe I'll get my 411 out and see what I can come up with. :)

I do agree, I like the 15 style machines the best. I do have some of the Singer Knit needles (with gold bands). It's all I knew to buy back in the day when I was sewing (poorly) on that 290C. I could snap those suckers in no time flat! :)

Wasn't that Phoenix one of the ones you wanted to keep???

The Phoenix is very much worth keeping - I found someone who needed it worse than I did - I am needing to cut down on the amount of stuff in the living space. I'm just glad it is in the right place. It has a way to drop the feed dogs, set the stitch length. It had a really cool little foot, a lever to flip to do something - just did a dandy job of FM. Easy to set up. I haven't ever seen a FM set up like that. The machine is very well engineered. Way ahead of it's time. The gal was thrilled to pieces with it. Even the cabinet was special.

I have another couple of questions for my now working 401a. First, is there something I need to do to maintain the motor? I am not nearly even close to being "handy" with electrical things, and it sounds okay to me and seems to run fine.

The other question is what kind of light bulb does it take? I don't see a part number in the manual.

I am still without my quilting mojo, but I do enjoy checking the dials every day to see if they still move - they do!

A couple of drops - not 32 drops, because they were small, at the very bottom of the "worm" gear (the vertical one that turns the hand wheel gear) that sits at the top of the motor - there's a bearing race under that gear that seizes up, or gets noisy, etc.

Check the brushes in the motor, I'll check tomorrow to see how accessible they are. Singer's usually pretty good, the brushes can be accessed without having to pull the motor on most machines. If they're less than about a 1/4" inch long, they need to be changed.

Other than that, if you do any electrical testing, unplug from the wall first. Don't do what I did on Monday, and unplug from the machine and "think" it's unplugged from the wall and grab the 2 terminals in the cable that mean business. Geez that hurt. Found my open circuit though. *shudders*

ETA: Yes, the 2 screws on the bottom of the motor, remove them, and the piece of plastic they're attached to, and look at the carbon "brush" inside the metal "tube". It should be 1/4" or longer.

The Bulb is a standard 15w bayonet style. Most Singer's used this bulb up until relatively recently.

Tammi,
We call that 'sparkle-ing' . My advice to you......no more sparkle-ing. VBG

Cathy