Finishing parting out the 66

Another supply run today.  One thing I knew that I needed was a gallon or two of Evapo-Rust (makes me thing of Rusteze from Cars).  The blog http://mysewingmachineaddiction.blogspot.com sings the praises of it, so I'm going to give it a go.  I went to the local (somewhat) Fastenal.  They were out of stock but ordered me two gallons to pick up tomorrow.

Back to the machine.  Working on removing the arm assembly today.  First thing was to get the stop motion cam bushing off.  I have a three arm puller that made short work of it. It's always nice when you find a new use for tools you bought for a single purpose years ago.  The photo here is of the puller attached to the bushing.

Next I loosened (with a hammer and a couple of dowels) the feed cam.  I had removed the set screw yesterday and it had a good soaking of Blaster PB over night.  Still, it split two dowels before breaking free.  I ended up wedging a piece of wood between it and the arm rock shaft then tapping lightly on the end handwheel end of the arm shaft to get it completely loose.

Next came time for the arm shaft itself and today's lesson.  Never blindly follow someone else's directions.  They might leave out little things like... oh... set screws.  For half an hour I tried tapping out the arm shaft.  It would always get to the same point then completely seize up.  I would tap it back and try again.  I began rotating the arm thinking maybe the arch in it was binding somewhere along the machines neck.  Same results.  I looked back at the instructions.  I accounted for all the pieces in the instructions.  Finally I took the whole head back onto the porch and gave the bushing that sits behind the needle bar crank a good spritzing with the Blaster PB, thinking something was binding with it.  I came back inside and pulled out some original Singer documentation to see what they say about the arm shaft.  While looking at the Form 20004 Points of Wear sheet I saw a strange little smudge.  Zooming in, sure enough, the Bushing has a set screw! D'oh!  Apparently the writer of the instructions I followed was missing his, he called it an oil hole.  After digging the smutz out of the hole I was greeted by the slot for the screw which came out remarkably easy, probably loosened from the thirty minutes of banging the bushing against it I had just finished.

With the set screw out, a few taps on the hand wheel end of the arm shaft popped the bushing out.  Though the feed cam became snug on the hand wheel end as the arm shaft slid though.  This one is a bit trickier.  The arm shaft is loose now, so just whacking away at it won't do anything but jostle things around.  But there's really no place for the puller arms to grip to slowly force it though.  So it's back to tapping, just with lots of wood wedged around to hold things steady.  And just let me sing the praises of Blaster PB once again here.  A few spritzes, let set for an hour and the arm shaft more or less slipped through the feed cam with moderate taps from the hammer.  The trick is, since the feed arm is free and sitting at angles to keep turning it between taps so I'm not wedging it the same angle constantly.

Once the arms shaft was pulled through the needle end of the machine I was easily able to remove the needle bar set screw.  I highly recommend waiting until the shaft is out before attempting to take off the crank.  I tried to do it through the screw-hole while it was still in the machine and could never get a good purchase with the screwdriver.  I'll need to buff down some burrs I created in those attempts.  With the screw out I used the puller again to pull the crank free.  Then once more to get the bushing off.  The bushing just needed to be turned with my fingers to get it over the ninety years of grunge build-up.

So here's the 66 all parted out.  The only pieces still in the machine are the tap in spool pin on top and the upper arm rock centering guide inside.  I haven't seen any information on removing the guide and since unlike later models this one doesn't have a screwdriver slot, I'm thinking it wasn't meant to come out once installed.  I didn't include every little screw in the photo.  Mostly because I didn't want to lose them all.

So tomorrow will be cleaning up the small bits.  The probably a break for a while until I find a place to work on the with the toxic sludge stripping and painting will create.  To be honest the machine came apart way faster than I thought it would when I first started looking at it.

For paint I was thinking about royal blue with red flames and "Singer Sewing Machines" done up like a Harley bar and shield.  The wife and other interested parties rejected that idea.  So it'll stay black.

First Post

My first post on my first blog.  I'm starting this to document the refurbishing of vintage Singer sewing machines I perform.  I've just started my first full disassembly and rebuild of a very icky 1926 Model 66 (show in the photo).  I picked it up Yesterday (November 29th).  I just about have it fully taken apart.  Once I do I'll post the complete machine laid out.  My first lessons learned are this:

1.  Get penetrating lubricant.  I was stopped cold last night when I got to removing the presser bar assembly.  The bracket was frozen solid to the presser bar.  I went to Autozone and picked up some Blaster PB.  I gave the entire front of the machine a fair spritzing and let it set for five hours.  I was planning overnight but curiosity got the better of me.  I used two dowels, one to hold the bracket from shifting and another to take the impact from a hammer.  I started out with just the mildest of taps and the bracket let go immediately.  It didn't fly out, but it was no difficult at all to work it out with some tugs and twists.

2.  Get a organizer.  My wife took me to Jerry's Artarama and we picked up at artist's box with lots of little cubby spaces and a few long ones that looks like it was made for holding the innards of an old Singer.  Everything is nicely organized and easy to close up/put away at the end of the days session on the kitchen table.  Home Depot has some nice cases as well, though I couldn't find one with spaces for the long parts from the bottom of the machine.

3.  Get ready for a mess.  I picked up two machines this week.  One was a Singer 15-91 that is immaculate.  I might give it a little cleaning but that's it.  This thing still had the receipt and test stitches in it from it's last service.  The second one I picked up was the 66.  Great Scot! what a difference.  The 66 was coughing up hairballs just loading it.  Add to that the lubricant to loosen the bolts and there is a steady stream of sludge dripping out of it.

4.  Have documentation of the specific model you are working on.  I've spent weeks planning a rebuild.  I looked high and low for my first candidate.  I was planning on it being a 15-91 and had found lots of stuff online about working on them.  Then I got one at a great price and it turned out to be a great machine already.  The 66 kind of fell into my lap and I jumped on it.  Yesterday was mostly a game of catchup once I got home, trying to find the right instructions.  Like I said, this is the first time I've ever taken a machine this far apart and I have no idea what I'm really doing.  So documentation is key.  Luckily someone from http://www.thesewingforum.co.uk pointed me to Steven Dingle's step by step instructions on assembling a 66.  They are a life saver.

5.  You'll need more tools, even if it's just an excuse.  I've been to Home Depot a couple times already.  Tomorrow I'll be going again to get a bearing extractor.  Sweet.

So that's my first post.  It's late and I need to get to bed.  Once I get the 66 fully broken down I'll post some photos of the parts spread out on the kitchen table.  (I told my wife she should be happy it's not an old Shovelhead motor, which it easily could have been.)  I won't promise when that will be.  I'm hoping tomorrow, but who knows what gotchas are still inside the machine.

Until then here's what it looked like before I started in on it:

Cheers,
Dave