Kenmore 1802 and a Funny Story

I rarely find sewing machines in my local thrift stores. When I do they are usually WAY over priced or craptastic plastic. Or both. Last Thursday I decided to hit a couple of thrift stores. And look what I found? I have been longing for a Kenmore model 158.1802. And there it was, with the case, foot pedal, and bobbin, marked at $29.99. It even had a downloaded copy of the manual. This particular thrift store uses different color tags and this week the white tags were 50% off. I scored the machine for a mere $15. I powered it up and everything seemed to move freely so what the heck, I brought it home. I set about cleaning, oiling and testing. All the functions worked. This model is really nice. But when I tried my beloved goldfish cam I found that the needle was ramming into the bobbin case at the widest part of the zig zag. Straight stitch was fine. I suspected the timing was off. Today the husbeast and I set out to adjust the timing. But no matter how we adjusted it the needle still hit the case. It was no where near the opening. Then I had a “light bulb” moment. Could it be the wrong bobbin case? I took the bobbin case out of my 1753 and compared them. Sure enough, the opening in the case was not wide enough. Somewhere along the way someone had put the wrong bobbin case into this machine. I’ll bet anything the previous owner (the one who downloaded the manual) could never figure out the problem and gave the machine away to the thrift store. It just so happens that I had a spare “correct” bobbin case laying around so I am good to go. The machine sews perfectly. And, as a bonus, I now know how to adjust timing. LOL!