Go to Cuisinart. com and download the manual. Do you have a shredding blade, or are you trying to just chop it? From your description I think you need to put the wide mouth food tube on and lock it in place and then drop in the narrow tube. I think my directions are poor, go to the site

Liz,

I don't know about exact models, but they all work pretty much the same way, I think. You have to put the pusher in, at least about a quarter inch, so that the prong pushes down the rod which allows the motor to go. It's not you. It's designed that way.

Cut your cabbage in half, and then into wedges that will fit the tube, put the main pusher in, with or without the narrow feed pusher inside the larger pusher, and turn it on, and it should work. You can probably (not asserting because of model variations) remove the pusher to add more cabbage, and put it back without turning off the motor, though I usually do turn it off out of habit.

Also, make sure that the handle of the bowl is over the hole in the base that the rod goes through. Mine is in the front. My housekeeper keeps putting it on backward and it takes me a minute to figure out why it won't work.

N.B.: There should be a small hole in the middle of the bottom narrow pusher. You can use it to drizzle oil, and stuff like that. There may also be a slot on the outside of the wide pusher and a tab on the narrow one. You can put the tab in the slot to sort of make them sort of stay together.

The mechanism is designed to prevent anyone from cutting off their fingers. They figure you can't get your hand into the narrow tube, so the machine operates. But you could get your hand into the wide tube, so the machine requires the tube be filled with the pusher.

WooHoo-I finally figured it out. It does seem a bit like putting a puzzle together. Johnliu, I thought it was probably a safety thing, but knew they weren't expecting me to shred cabbage thru that little hole. Deeebert-glad to know about the manual. I will check to see if it has anything I don't. My book seems like it covers everything but what I needed. I even looked at youtubes, but couldn't figure it out. After playing with every possible angle, it finally dawned on me. Pillog-thats what I had to do-keep removing and adding more cabbage, but it did a beautiful job in a short time, even with the stopping and adding and relocking. And the motor hums along so quietly. Think I will have fun with this-it came with 11 disks and four cutter/mixers!

Wow you got the full set of disks. All the parts for this FP are still available. It is a great machine.

Johnliu: Do you have any other attachments that you use or were you just meaning if something broke the parts are still available? I was amazed to read that the original warranty was for two years, but the warranty for the rotor, stator and motor shaft bearings had a 28 year warranty. I don't know enough about machinery to really know how long those items normally last, but couldn't believe a company would warrant anything for 28 years!

"--------I don't know enough about machinery to really know how long those items normally last, but couldn't believe a company would warrant anything for 28 years!"

Yes, you can warrant an induction motor for 28 years.

An induction motor is very simple mechanically. Only one moving parts and no electronics, no gears.

dcarch

I meant that replacement and repair parts are available.

I found the same model (+ maybe 6-8 additiional disks for vasious slicing/shredding) for $8 at a thrift store... no manual. You can easily find on at C's website, as previously suggested.