strat tremolo bar

[suckasucks]

anyone know where to get the little black spring which holds the tremolo bar in place in those stock fender strat tremolos?

 

[SoulJah]

Funny you should mention this, I was changing my strings on my EJ last night and found a small black spring lying around. Wondering where it was from I did some research and found it to be a trem-arm retainer spring. Not to worry, I read up on Dan Erlwine's guitar repair articles and a missing spring should pose no problem.

If you want a replacement, your best bet is either Davis or Guitar Connection. Try consulting Guitar Connection, the guy's a strat-expert!

However upon doing even more reading, I found this on Callaham's website regarding the trem arm spring...

"Note on Tremolo Arms: The #1 breaker of tremolo arms is the spring Fender puts inside their blocks. Do NOT use this spring. If your arm has too much play, wrap it with teflon tape. The spring will cause the threads to gall and lock up. The 2nd reason for broken arms is trying to thread the arm in too far. Our arms fit our blocks with little or no play. Fender arms do not. If you keep trying to thread any arm past thread length, the block will try to cut additional threads. This will create a tremendous stress raiser and cause the arm to fail at the top thread cut by the block. The arm should be positioned 1 turn from bottoming out. Again use teflon tape to take out play, do not keep threading the arm down. Our blocks and arms should get a drop of oil every so often because of the closeness of the fit."

http://www.callahamguitars.com/partsstr.htm

Read it, it's pretty damn good info to check out.

Hope this helps!

 

[SoulJah]

http://www.fender.com/products/search.php?partno=0994931000

This should be what you're refering too.

 

[kentheman2000]

I had no idea it existed! oh man... it must've been taken away from my strat...

 

[SoulJah]

I believe the purpose of the spring itself is to prevent over tightening, or else you'll grind all the threads from your trem arm itself.

I'm a strat newbie, I'm used to pop-in trem arms, perhaps some strat veterans can shed more light on this.

 

[suckasucks]

yeah its to prevent over threading. the guy who posted about the tension springs is right but where to find them?? i need it so i dont have to reach a mile before getting to my trem arm.

oh and btw, whats teflon tape??? lol

EDIT: another question, anyone know where to get dimarzio cables/ patch cables locally?

 

[SoulJah]

As stated in my above post, I believe you can get the spring at Davis, GC or even Sweelee.

Teflon tape you can get at your local homefix. Teflon tape is that white tape which is used mostly for plumbing purposes. White soft, very stringy, silky in texture.

As for Dimarzio Cables/Patch Cables, Sweelee sells the Cables, but I don't think they have brought in the Patch Cables yet.

 

[kentheman2000]

Ok cool! I learnt something new... I've always been causious about how much i screw my trem arm in... maybe i know it's there but i don't quite know it... hmm... :?

 

[suckasucks]

^^ ok thanks soul. i'll check those place out.
If anyone can confirm it would be great or knows a place which has for sure.

 

[kentheman2000]

Dude, you have to get out there and explore man... tha's how we know if a place has certain things or not...