Kenmore 1040

Yesterday, I went to a church rummage sale and found a plastic, rose-covered carrying case with a $10 price tag hanging from it. When I picked it up, I knew something was in there and when I looked underneath, I could see it was a Kenmore 158.1040. I headed for the check out line.

When I got home and opened the case, the 3/4 size Kenmore was nestled inside. It's 12.75 inches long, 5 inches wide, and 10 inches tall. The throat is almost 7 inches at its widest point. I haven't stepped on the scale with it, but I'm guessing it weighs a little more than 15 pounds. 

If you're wondering where the thread spool pin is, it's down inside the machine. You pull it up when you want to sew and push it down before you put the machine back in the case. The little flip-out accessory box was there and inside were three presser feet (a fourth foot was on the machine), a blind stitch guide, four buttonhole guide feet, one extra bobbin, a needle, a needle plate for zigzag stitching, and a couple of screw drivers. 

To create extra bed space, the accessory box rotates forward and the hinged extension on the end flips up.

The accessory box comes out and behind it is where you find your bobbin and the lever to lower the feed dogs.

E and I cleaned it and oiled it. To do this, we opened the cover plate on the end with the light bulb and then popped off the cover plate on the top of the machine. On the end with the hand wheel, the cover plate is held in place by a screw at the bottom and by a pin at the top. The pin is held in place by a screw (see next photo) which we had to loosen before we could remove the side cover plate. The bottom of the machine is held in place with a few screws, too. We downloaded a free manual from the Sears parts website and it shows where the oiling points are.

After we had everything cleaned and oiled, one problem became apparent right away: The clutch on the hand wheel wouldn't release. We Kroiled the living daylights out of it and left it overnight.  Here's where we put the Kroil:

This morning, I tried releasing the clutch and was surprised when it broke free very easily. The only other problem we found is the feed dogs don't drop. We're hoping the Kroil will work its magic on them. If not, it's no big deal. 

[Update: Eureka! Two days after I posted this, we got the feed dogs to drop. On the underside of the machine, there’s a rod with a pointed tip which passes through a cylinder and pokes out through a ring. (If you have your machine on its back with the bobbin case facing up, the rod/cylinder/ring are to the right of the bobbin case.) When you turn down the lever to drop the feed dogs, the rod ought to pull back from the ring and go into the cylinder. Our rod wasn’t moving, so we Kroiled and heated it until it finally moved freely back and forth in the cylinder. Alas, the feed dogs still wouldn’t drop because even though the rod was pulled back into the cylinder, the ring continued to move up and down when the cylinder moved up and down. There are a couple of joints between the ring and the feed dogs and after we Kroiled and heated those, we finally got the action we wanted.]

The moment of truth finally arrived when we plugged in the machine and started sewing. It made a straight stitch very easily and after it had warmed up a little bit, it began to zigzag and do all of the other built-in stitches. It does a special mending stitch, a blind stitch, and a stretch stitch. There are three other settings on the special stitch dial which you use to make buttonholes. 

I didn't exactly need another sewing machine, but I couldn't resist this little guy. Happy sewing everyone!