Hello,
I am having trouble turning the hand wheel on my sewing machine. It will only go part way and the needle will not come down all the way to sew. I have taken off the inner wheel that you turn when you wind the bobbin, but when that is on, it still will just move the needle bar so far. I've checked and cleaned behind the shuttle and bobbin, but there is no thread caught there. Is it perhaps needing to be re-timed? I cannot get the large balance wheel completely off to see if thread might be caught there. My machine is Kenmore 385.1168280. Thanks much!

Irene, November 2008

Hello Irene,
Could be a retiming problem unless you know that at some point when you wound a bobbin a lot of thread got caught round the balance wheel, there are variations of that model and some were made by Singer, I can attach timing instructions if you e-mail below.
Ken

drivewithken@blueyonder.co.uk, November 2008