Can i tighten sloppy Elephant Ear tuners?

I picked up an Ibanez ATK305 from the MF blowout, and the bushings on a couple of the tuners are very loose. They're the cheap style, where the backplate is bent in a "U" to form the bushings for the worm gear.

A couple of them are crowded very close together, and they're 3/4 size, so I can't just slap a set of regular tuners on there without leaving a mess.

Any advice about how to tighten a sloppy bushing? I was wondering if I might be able to dimple the top of the "U" with a drift, in order to take up the slack.

Thanks, Sam.

Oddly enough, I've never looked closely at these things before- didn't even realize there was a spring in there!

Based on Sam's advice, I loosened the G string until there was just enough tension left on the string to keep the ball end from jumping out of the bridge. Then I attacked the tuner, removing the large screw that holds the gear to the back of the string post.



With the screw off, I removed the gear, exposing the leaf spring that tensions the tuner. Pulling the string post down through the headstock about half-way gave enough clearance to remove the spring, which turns out to be made of two pieces- a black plastic shim, and the chrome spring:



I took the spring, and tensioned it by bending the end up slightly:



It doesn't take much of a bend to produce the required tension:



Then, I reinstalled the spring, checking to confirm that I had sufficient tension:





After re-installing the gear and tightening the screw, I made sure to hold the string with my thumb as I tightened it up, to keep the string wound neatly around the post:



After repeating the process four more times, I was pleased to find that tuning is now much smoother. Best of all, after fixing the loose tuners, the dead spot was considerably reduced. Before re-tensioning the tuners, I had a broad dead spot from about B to D# on the first and second strings. Now it only affects the D# on the first string.

madmatt said:

I have an '89 MIJ Fender with sloppy tuners.
Are they the same?
Can I do this?

Click to expand...

Don't know for sure, but it's a common design.

As long as you detune the string before you start, you can't do any damage by checking it out. Just loosen the string, then use a Phillips head screwdriver to undo the big screw on the back of the gear.

If there's a leaf spring under the gear, as shown in these pictures, you should be good to go.

Two important precautions before you start:
- make sure you have a good quality screwdriver, large enough to engage the screw head firmly- you don't want to chew up the screw head.
- hold the headstock over a piece of newspaper or a bowl, to catch the string post if it drops out.

Oh, and report back on how it goes. There are a lot of Fender who would appreciate the information...