Shortly after mid-morning I managed to find a few minutes to sit down with the Kenmore and see if any of the lubrication had soaked into the needed areas. Much to my disappointment, nothing had suddenly broken free in the night. The hand wheel still wouldn't budge. Up until now every machine I had encountered which was frozen had some minor degree of movement. The Necchi BU had led the pack with barely a millimeter of play. The Kenmore had no movement at all.
Again, I went through the linkages, and perhaps it was only a fraction of play, but the thread take-up arm did have just the barest bit of wiggle. Combining that with the overall condition of the front end, I felt that this area was not the issue and went searching underneath.
The most suspicious area of the entire sewing machine ended up being a connection between a downward push arm and the bottom feed dog linkage. There seemed to be more corrosion here than anywhere else on the machine.
Since I was here, I went ahead and pulled the deck plates (bobbin and feed dog) checked for errant thread and cleaned out all the fluff, and again tried the wheel and got nothing. It was at this juncture that I realized that I couldn't really get a good grip on the balance wheel.
The wheel is a chromed piece and very smooth. The surface was machined in such a way as to give the flatness of the wheel a tapered edge. Try as I might, my bare hands always slipped. I just couldn't get a grip. This forced me to sit and think. I began to wonder how 'standardized' some things had become on sewing machines. After all, this was one made in Germany in 1959 and operated with a bobbin first designed by Singer in the late 1800's. I wondered what else on late 50's machines may have been similar between manufacturers?
I took a chance - unscrewed the balance wheel, slipped off the belt (stopped to clean off errant thread where I did not expect to find errant thread) and then I wandered off into the depths of the garage.
Eventually my eyes caught the glimpse of a hand wheel on an old Singer 66. This model had been made for a treadle base and the balance wheel was big, heavy, and it had spokes. I knew when I saw it that I could get a really good grip on that wheel... so, I removed it, and returned to the Lady.
To my both my delight and surprise, the Singer wheel slipped on as if it had been made to fit. It actually lined up in every way to the original wheel. I slipped on the lock washer, and reset the lock nut and screw. Now, I had something I could grip - if only the machine would turn...
I hit up that bad spot again with a shot of lube and tried out my new lever. The wheel worked really well, sort of. I mean it had grip. There wasn't any problem there. The issue was still that nothing wanted to turn. I could move the entire machine within the cabinet with a tug on the 66 wheel. It was at this point that I gave consideration to getting the heat gun... but an odd thought of 'What I need is a hammer' came to mind, and even though I don't usually pay attention to thoughts that sound like cheap jokes... I got out a small hammer.
With great care I gently tapped the rusty arm connection on the underside. I rapped it a couple of times and went back to the wheel. There was no 'sudden' break-free, but something did move. Suddenly I had just a touch, maybe an eighth of an inch of travel - one way. I tried to turn it back, and it went back maybe a sixteenth.
So there I sat, working the big 66 wheel down a sixteenth and then back up. After a minute or so, the travel distance grew to a half an inch. It was working! I'd guess now that perhaps (?) I spent five minutes wiggling back and forth and with each new twist the resistance waned until at long last I edged the wheel toward a full turn. It was easing up more and more with each movement. Several more minutes passed and the mechanisms were -almost- easy to spin. I stopped, replaced the 66 wheel with the original and reattached the belt. The wiring on this machine appeared flawless so I went ahead and plugged it in, flipped the fused power strip on, and tried the knee control.
The Lady waited no more.
She took off as if she'd been sitting there collecting energy just waiting for a day to spin again. There wasn't any motor whine. It just flew to life and I sat and allowed it to run for a good twenty seconds. She didn't complain at all - at first. It wasn't until I began adjusting controls that she decided to have issues.
The feed dog drop isn't working at all, and the stitch width selector is not happy. The feed dog drop appears to be an easy fix (?) but the stitch width is giving me real trouble. The machine will run perfectly smooth if the selector is near zero, but the complaints get more and more clamorous with extended width in either direction. It's going to take a little more tracing and oiling I think, before the Lady has fully recovered from her extended holiday.
I have reasons to be optimistic:
First four stitches from the Lady 89.
Now I should perhaps correct myself for what I mentioned in the first part of this.
The Lady Kenmore model 89 isn't the easiest machine to find, but the Kenmore model 117.640 is far more difficult. There weren't any issues with the quality of the 640 at all... since it too was another Gritzner made machine in a Sears suit. There is some question as to -exactly- when this machine was available in the US. I've seen dates as early as 1955 and as late as 1957. Finding information about the machine is difficult.
I need to give credit where it is due: The Tightacres blogspot has the only photo I can find online of a 117.640 - and that's just the 640... I have yet to see a Kenmore 117.644 - the portable model. Finding a picture of the original Gritzner isn't all that easy either!
This entire line of thought is giving me that itch again. I've been collecting Kenmore images for quite awhile and it may be about time that I did some sort of post. Call it: The pocket guide to identifying old Kenmore machines... if you have several pockets that are really, really large...
Maybe if I narrow it down to one decade at a time?
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