| I looked in a technical reference and couldn't a lot of discussion on Ibanez Truss-Rods.
A Truss Rod is in-placed (most often) when a neck is mfg. Prior to the lamination and shaping process a routing of the neck is run and the rod is placed at that time. The possibility is that in many manufacturing settings, too much glue is used during laminating; this is pretty common because that thing needs to be solid. The glue then seeps into the channel of the Truss-Rod and prevents the thing from turning smoothly.
In some plants this is cause for the neck being pulled and tossed preciesly for the reason you're talking about. A smooth turning rod is very helpful in setting a neck. but glue does get into the channel.....sometimes a lot.
If you think something's really amiss borrow a stud-finder and run in up the back of the neck and see if that helps determine length but in all likelihood, it's glue in the channel. Typically, if material is in the rod channel you could un-string the instrument and mark the rod start-point, then gently turn the rod clockwise and counter clockwise 1/4 turn about 6 times and see if that helps [smooth the rod turning process]. If it does, you could expand that to about 1/3 turn and then come back to original position, re-string and adjust from there. There are some that are really heavily glued-up. The channel is fulled with laminate glue. The method some folks have used with to shoot some mineral oil into the channel with a hypodermic syringe....but that's pretty extreme. | 
