Hotrodding a Pfaff

So my favorite sewing machine has a problem. It has a motor that is 50 or 60 years old. It is one of those old universal Safety Motors made by the Mercury company. Plus the pedal is one of the type every sewing machine guy tells you to replace because it is a fire hazard. You know, the kind with either German resistance wire or nichrome in it. Where they basicly made a toaster to use power in order to control motor speed.

So being as I use the Pfaff a LOT, and in the interest of not burning the house down, I am thinking of making some changes. Besides there is a really loud hum on this machine when it is running, and the motor (which has no vents!) is starting to heat up faster and hotter all the time.

Has anybody here ever upgraded their motor? What did you use?

Anybody upgraded an old motor with one of those new servo motors? I have to say having the thing start up immediately without having to turn the flywheel is a dazzling concept. Being able to begin with both hands on the work, and starting at a constant speed are tremendous sale points.

I am looking at this one:

But I need to do more research first. The current motor is 1/13 horse, a jump to 1/2 seems like quite a lot. I would want to make sure the machine could handle it, though heaven knows I could use the torque on some leather projects.

DH is already having a joyous time researching pedal possibilities. I have been treated to lectures on the differences between hand and foot controls, adapting potentiometers to foot pedals, and all such fun stuff. He is curretly having fun figuring out how to build controls into an old Cybaby WahWah pedal (a guitar effect). Just because he thinks it would be majorly cool to have me running the sewing machine with a wahwah pedal.

Oh! It is a Pfaff 130. Which is why I suspect it could handle a half a horse.

NightMist maybe I should shop for wee bitty flame decals while I am at it.

Well that was careless of me. I did the copy paste thing to post this to the general sewing group and sent it here again by mistake.

Comes of deciding not to crosspost even when it would be reasonable.

NightMist