truss rod broken?

[swarfrat]

My favorite guitar had a rattle and some fret buz above the 12th. I've adjusted before, and it seems to work itself loose. This is a one piece  maple ESP neck with a blind truss rod. So I took the neck off and the truss rod is indeed loose. Zero resistance until it suddenly stops. It stops the rattle, so I don't think its broken in two or anything.

Any ideas what's wrong and what my fix options are? I adjusted the truss rod so that the the threads engage, its about 1/4 turn past that before it gets tougher than I feel comfortable tightening further. But its not enough to give me the relief I sought. I can raise the action to fix the buzz, but eventually the rattle will return.

This guitar is really special to me, and especially the logo'd neck (its an extremely early Zion with a rare logo.)

 

[DangerousR6]

On a neck thru or set neck, thats not good...Sounds like it my have stripped threads...At any ate, the fretboard will most likely have to come off to fix it.... :dontknow:

 

[pabloman]

StewMac Truss Rod Rescue Kit?????

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Special_tools_for_Truss_rods/Truss_Rod_Rescue_Kit.html

 

[swarfrat]

Its a one piece maple neck w skunk stripe - so the StewMac tool is probably my only hope. IF it really is broken.

The odd thing is, it doesn't act like its stripped. It just doesn't appear to be pushing on anything until it gets to the end of thread travel.
I can actually unscrew it a bit and the truss rod will pull out of the neck a bit. I didn't do this very far because I didn't want it to disengage from the nut inside. Just in case. It just exerts no force on anything.

At least its backbowed, I suppose I can string it with 13's

 

[mayfly]

Its a one piece maple neck w skunk stripe - so the StewMac tool is probably my only hope. IF it really is broken.

The odd thing is, it doesn't act like its stripped. It just doesn't appear to be pushing on anything until it gets to the end of thread travel.
I can actually unscrew it a bit and the truss rod will pull out of the neck a bit. I didn't do this very far because I didn't want it to disengage from the nut inside. Just in case. It just exerts no force on anything.

At least its backbowed, I suppose I can string it with 13's

If you have a lot of thread on it, you can just put some washers on there.  However, if it's backbowed, I wonder if it's stuck at a tight adjustment or something.  Will the end of the rod move at all when you put some english on the neck?

 

[swarfrat]

Any backbow is an inference based on the fretting out I'm seeing, not direct observation. It might even be an unnecessary shim or something.

Currently the truss rod is about 1/4 turn past freewheeling,and I didn't feel comfortable taking it any tighter than 1/2 turn. If I back it out from where it is, it turns freely and you can pull the truss rod out a few threads.

is there any danger of disengaging from the nut if I back it out further? I suppose to add washers, I'd have to remove it.

But if its straight with no truss rod pressure, I don't suppose there's any relief to be had any way.

For most of the time I've had the guitar I played it with crazy high action. My main point was to stop the rattle. Loctite purple maybe?

 

[iamdavidmorris]

You're not the first person to ever have this problem.  Whenever I've built guitar necks, I've wrapped the truss rod in saran wrap before putting the fretboard on, just to make sure this never happens.  Check out this link.  I've never done it, but it looks like a good fix to me.

http://www.frets.com/FRETSpages/Luthier/Technique/Setup/BuzzDiagnosis/TrussRod/trussrod.html

Good luck!
David