For those of you that have had troubles with truss rod rattle, I'd like to share with you a product that really does work.
First of all, determine that the rattle is indeed your truss rod, and then make sure that it's not simply a case one that's never been tightened. On my bass, the rod was tight, yet you could hear the rod rattle in the neck when the open E & B strings were played, or if you rapped the back of the neck with your knuckles. I had eliminated all other possible sources of the rattle, and so had my guitar tech.
I'd had this problem years ago with another instrument. I sent it back to the builder, who poured a rubber cement down the truss rod canal to silence the problem. He then sent it back to me. To my horror, when I opened the case, there was brown ooze flowing out of the truss rod canal...it hadn't dried yet! Anyway, once that mess was cleaned up and the glue was dry, the truss rod was all but frozen in place. So this fix was one I didn't want to use except as a last resort. I've also heard of "tool handle plastic" being thinned and poured down the canal in the same way.
Frustrated, I searched around the net, and I found this fix on a repair forum online. With nothing to lose, I gave it a shot. The product is called "Chair-Loc Plus". The idea of the product is to fix chairs without gluing by swelling the wood in the joints. It works within 30 minutes. It comes in a 3-oz bottle with a syringe and two needles. About 9 bucks.
Heres' one source, but there are many online:
http://www.rockler.com/findit.cfm?page=11264
Anyway, I put the bass on the stand, took off the truss rod cover, and injected some of the Chair-Loc down the truss rod canal. 15 minutes later, no more rattle, even with the hardest rapping on the back of the neck. Woo Hoo!!!
I hope this helps some of you that have had the same problem.
KayCee
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Edit: BTW, the problem wasn't with the bass shown in my avatar.
