MIM Fender truss rod removal

sdoow · #1 07-03-2010, 08:45 PM

New to TalkBass, lurked for a while and finally jumped in. Most of the time I am able to find threads where someone else has already dealt with the same problems I come across.

I have what I think to be an unusual situation. I recently picked up a project MIM Jazz Bass that looked like someone really believed that the "funk is in the junk", I mean absolutely, filthy gross.

Anyhow I started cleaning it up and checking it out, and when I turned the truss rod the black plastic insert turned with it, and now it won't turn back. Question being, can I completely unscrew the truss rod and remove it to gain access to the plastic insert? The truss rod is of course the style accessed from the neck, and adjusted with an Allen wrench.

Thanks guys in advance,
Greg

Craig_S · #2 07-03-2010, 09:18 PM

You cannot remove the truss rod without doing surgery on the neck.

walterw · #3 07-03-2010, 11:41 PM

you can unscrew the truss rod nut all the way out, which should leave you enough room to wrestle with that insert. loosen the strings first, then afterwords put that nut back in and tighten it a bit before you tune up again.

(it takes a 3/16" wrench, of course)

sdoow · #4 07-04-2010, 12:49 PM

Walter, thank you so much for your advice. I have noticed your name time and time again while searching for other solutions. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience with the rest of us amateurs.

It seemed to me that the hex nut would be too narrow to actually be a nut, I assumed it to be an integral part of the truss rod, with the threads going into the insert at the heel with some sort of bearing surface at the headstock end. StewMac didn't show a listing for it, so I thought something else must be going on. If only I had Googled "MIM truss rod nut". But I digress...

There was so much funk down in the hole between the insert and the nut that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to retrieve the nut. They were basically fused together, so much so that I had to rotate the insert 180 deg., drill a small hole in the insert, stick a bent dental pick through the hole and use vise grips to pull the whole insert and nut out. Then I used a 1/4" socket extension to drive the nut out of the insert. Ah, success...

Thanks again,
Greg

Pilgrim · #5 07-04-2010, 12:52 PM

Crafty!!

Turnaround · #6 07-04-2010, 08:54 PM

One or two sticks of TNT would have done the job a lot faster. Not without a lot of collateral damage though...

sdoow · #7 07-04-2010, 10:18 PM

The thought crossed my mind.

timmus · #8 07-15-2010, 07:37 PM

I removed a truss rod from my MIM P bass last year. The weld broke off at the anchor causing the truss rod to spin whenever I tried to adjust the nut...I got the plastic piece out by heating it with a hair dryer and twisting twist drill in there that was ever so slightly larger than the ID of the plastic piece...it grabbed it enough so I could twist it out. The heat from the dryer softened the glue, I guess. By holding the truss rod at the anchor, I was able to back the nut out the top and remove it.
To remove the truss rod, I had to use a router and routed out a channel as wide as the trussrod anchor and as deep (gets very close to the frets). That channel I routed out to the heel of the neck...once I did that, I was able to push the truss rod down and out of the channel using a piece of 3/16 x 2' round steel stock I bought at Lowes stuck in the top of the neck and using it as a long drift punch..

I took the truss rod to a friend of mine and he rewelded it. I reinstalled it opposite of the way I removed it, cut a maple block out that fit the routed channel and glued it in...made sure everything was flat on the bottom of the neck heel and the now, the neck is as good as new.