Whomever designed this should be fired!!
 

Well ok, I'm not sure if it's even possible at this point to fire someone because this probably happened over ten years ago...

But anyways, I'm having problems with this thing:



Actually, nothing wrong with the one above. That's the tuning machine I bought to replace this:



Notice that there are no black "nubs" sticking out from this tuning machine casing, unlike the first one. Where are the nubs, you ask?



How on earth Fender approved such a horrible design is beyond me. And even worse, Fender used these on the American Deluxe basses in the late 90's--their top of the line basses :rollno:

Well turns out, I did some more research online and this seems to be a common problem with these tuners. So much so that Fender has completely discontinued them and replaced them with the newer version--with bigger nubs. That's great for all the new basses equipped with them, but how about the older basses that need fixing? A couple searches on eBay and Amazon later, I still can't find a proper replacement for the broken one.

What about switching the black casings between the old and new versions and keep the chrome hardware?

Well I tried, and looks like Fender was one step ahead of me. They redesigned the casing just enough so that the hardware isn't interchangeable. Looks like I'm back to searching on eBay for this elusive tuner... Or preparing to shell out $100 for an entire new set of tuners.

The black casing is made from "composite" according to Schaller, aka plastic. I'm not against plastic, but the design in this case certainly did not take material limitations into consideration. The shear stress on the black nubs must be enormous! I'm surprised they didn't break sooner!

Ok that's it for my late night soap opera rant. I'm just in disbelief at how this design got passed the designer, supervisors, and the entire R&D department at Fender and Schaller.

none of these fit? (i only see the ones with the fat Y-key in gold, as opposed to the flat cloverleaf; the Y-key ones should be the same size, to where you can swap out components.)

if all the current black-body keys have the fatter nubs, you could dig the plastic bits out of the holes, jam set screws or something in them that stick up a little, drill matching recesses in that plastic housing, then put the key back on.

you could also just widen the holes in the bass enough for the new key to fit on.

the real fatal flaw with these keys is the little tensioning screw that wants to back out and fall off, taking that odd bevel ring with it.

the fix here is a drop of loc-tite on that screw.

Structural plastic that's not. Whodathunkit? Looks like there were either no fillet or too small a fillet where the pins join the housing which would lead to stress risers and the pin breaking off.

Walterw's set screw thing would work. I'd have the screws go into the wood 5/16" and have 1/16" sticking out. That would use a common 3/8" long part. Holes in the wood will need to be the correct size for the set screws to get a good grip and at least 5/16" deep.

An easier option, if you aren't worried about looks, would be to put some small pins or screws in the locations marked in the pic. I'd have the pins go into the wood about 3/8" and have about 1/8" sticking out. Brass brads or small nails with the heads cut off would work. Drill smaller than necessary pilot holes. The only thing needed from the pins is enough shear strength to keep the tuners from rotating.

Whatever you do, I'd do it to all of them since the others will probably fail.

mech

I'd use a few drops of superglue, put the thing back in place and resume playing.
With a bit of luck you will never hear about this issue again in your lifetime.

From 1996 to this very day, I've never picked up an American "Deluxe" Fender that didn't turn me off in every possible way.

It's "Whoever designed this ...".