My mum’s got an old electric Singer sewing machine which is about 40 odd years old. Singer sewing machines are well supported generally and parts are readily available, but I find it’s sometimes fun to try and find the cheapest way to fix something myself.
The foot pedal on this machine went pop and smelled horrible after. The machine then stopped working, oh dear.
The pedal is of high quality construction and easily better than any generic replacement on the market, so it was definately worth saving.
Opening up the pedal was just a few screws, which then exposed the whole mechanism. The mains resistor was in tact and seemed to test with resistance. A good start. The contacts were in good condition as was the rest of all the components, except for the mains input capacitor, which has spectactularly failed and split open, a common problem on older mains capacitors.
Repair kits are readily available for about £5, but that seemed expensive to me! Using the existing capacitor as a guide, I found a suitable component on eBay for £2.09 delivered. That’s more like it.
The capacitor I used was: Film Capacitor, 0.1 µF, 250 V, PET (Polyester), ± 5%, R60 Series (from eBay).
Here’s a little slide show that I hope will help others fix their pedal, should it fail.
With the old capacitor cut out and the new one soldered in, the pedal was ready to run again. Sorted.
Cost of a replacement: £15-30 for a generic part. Cost of repair, £2.09, 1 cup of tea.
Fix It Workshop 
Hi I have an old singer sewing machine foot like the one in your picture,do you take on repairs.?
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Hi Elaine, sorry for the short delay- just catching up on my web-work! I’ve seen that you’ve also emailed us too, so we’ll pick it up from there. All the best.
Matt
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Hi Elaine, I might be able to help if you can get it to Worthing? Please contact me through the site. Thanks
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You could have saved yourself two quid , the capacitor isn’t required, basically redundant and can simply be removed.. .. it was originally fitted to suppress electrical noise on old AM valve radios .. best regards James (electrical engineer)
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HI, you could have saved yourself two quid, and a bit of time , the capacitor is not required, it was originally fitted to reduce interference on old wireless radio sets.. so just simple cut it out and throw away… Jim (electrical engineer ).
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Hi, I have a problem with a similar foot pedal & the “white tube” in the photo here seems to be broken. Does anybody know where I can get one or what it’s called?
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Marie, it’s called a “carbon pile rheostat”, and this particular size is made by Singer for Singer. It’s a simple enough mechanism though: inside are a few dozen (fragile!) carbon discs, and pushing the pedal squashes them together making them more conductive. If you’re careful, you can take the discs out of two broken rheostats, prepare the correct number of working ones, and produce a working one (and plenty of spare discs).
There’s a video on Youtube by “Andy Tube” about such a repair.
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