It looks like there might be a screw hole for a lamp on yours; the tiny backet for the 99 comes with the lamp. I shall have to take out my 99 and have a further look. It's a long time since the lamp was off.

I dont know EU laws, but US requires such dates on nearly everything.  It makes yiu wonder though,  What happens to sour cream after the “useby” date?  Does it become sweet cream again?

Curvey cucumbers are out here, they need to be straight. Some regulations has turned out a bit odd . There has been a public effort to reduce waste here and info on what type of foods that can be used after their sell by date; yogurt and sour cream being a good example. They are rather strict on the eggs sold here, but they tell us they are fine for weeks after the sell by date.

Don't you have a back up machine you can take out until your fancy 6600 returns? 8 weeks on a simpler machine should be doable?

Make sure the check-spring is all right on the top tensioner, they have to be replaced if they are damaged. Make sure you get the right one for the old tensioner, I think it differs from the type with numbered dials. If you don't mind spending a bit of time on it, it's well with it a DIY fixup. There are lots of help to be found on the web.

By 1990s the so called called lubraction free machines, or at a least with minimal lubrication and maintanance. It means DIY maintanance is a bit more cumbersome, mostly to get the casing off.  I think replacement circuit boards are available for this model, they even have them repaired. I guess they are worth it, people still hand them in for service and repair.

I had my 99 in for service years a go, it went out with a bang. It turned out to be bad capacitors and very much in need of rewiring. It came back with new wiring, the old cloth covered were relaced by black pvc insulated stuff. It has behaved flawlessly since. I think I payed a bit more than your estimated price. To buy the correc type of wires and maybe carbon brushes  your self will cost a bit too. A good repair shop has this by the roll and replacement parts in boxes, motor belt, bobbin tyres, etc. It's not always that much to be save by a DIY service. I prefer to do it my self, but I would not hesitate to hand it in some where if the price were right. Here £60 would be a very good price for a service, at least if the repair guy actually did something. All in all, I would say it's worth the price.


I would recommend going through the maintanaces steps of  cleaning and oiling before anything else. Chance is it will sort out all the issues you mention. Take the bobbin case out, face plate off, throat plate. There are at least 3 or 4 oil points on top, all hinges and joints behind the face plate and under the base  need more than a drop of oil  on dry and sticky machines. Don't touch the screw in center near the bobbin case; slide off the bobbin cover completely, the end of the lever is lifted up and towards you; it releases the bobbin case. The race turing under the bobbin case needs a bit of oil too.  You need spend some time on each oil point to make enough oil reach inners of joints and hinges. Some places there are tiny holes in the metal, other places the oil points are the joints. Poke the holes on top, to reach all the points behind the stitch length lever (or turn knob) you need to add oil on top of the machine, move stitch length adjustment to extreme positions, test sew and repeat a few times. The same for the hand wheel, it takes more than a few drops of oil to reach the outer part of the hand wheel and the chromed release screw.

Illustrations showing the oil points. There are similar guides for the top tensioner, the later 99s had a numbered dial, the earlier hand a simpler nut and spring adjustment. You can do a drop test for the bobbin case (measure up a 1 oz bag of rice or beans) as an estimation for the bobbin tension, and fine tune from there. There's always a bit of test sewing and adjustment involved.

How are you doing on the feed dog movments and what type of thread are you using?

I don't know all the finer points of long bobbin models, and this is a bit more of the same you already are on to; for trouble shooting snapping upper thread;

Check the needle, even replace it with a good quality brand for trouble shooting purposes. Make sure needle size and thread weight is reasonably matched. I once had a bad batch of needles, several packages, I don't use that brand as much anymore. The needles weren't as polished and finely finished off as the regular brands, and my best mercerised cotton thread snapped for no good reason. On the older straight stitchers; needle in the correct way!

Check the thread, does it snap unusually easily between your fingers? Is it wound around the spool pin or stuck some where?

Check for burrs in the needle plate and thread guides, sometimes thread catch and fray, any burr needs to be grinded and polished out.

Clean the tensioners; make sure there is gradual tension as you turn the nut in. Make sure tension releases and tightens properly with the presser foot lever. Clean between the tension disks, and check the spring in shuttle too.

For the feed dogs, it's very common for them to get stuck or locked up when the machine needs cleaning and oil. Take of slide plates, needle plate and clean under the feed dogs. Scrape the grooves clean with a tooth pick if they are grimy.

Detect all oil points; pay particularly attention to the parts from stitch length lever to feed dogs; oil, run the machine, turn the stitch length lever to extreme positions, keep on oiling and running the machine. Make sure everything is clean and oiled around the shuttle carrier too.