My beloved US strat has a tragic truss rod rattle. Replace the neck or ditch the guitar?

[JimAnsell]

So i have a surf green 01 US fat strat texas special. I got it a little bit before covid, and it was like new for a 20 year old guitar. It immediately felt like a keeper, but then within a few years, this truss rod rattle developed. at first it was just seasonal, and only happened certain times of the year, as if the movement of the wood when the seasons changed made it better or worse. Well now it doesn't go away at all. If you hold the neck very tightly, or stick a chop stick into the truss rod hole to sort of hold it in place, it stops. It makes playing the guitar unplugged unbearable. I've seen some fixes on line where someone drills a hole in the neck heel and will the hole with enough epoxy to fill in the gap, still allowing it to turn, but it looks like a rig job at best. I could probably get 700ish for this thing as is, with the truss rod problem, or i could buy a new, american made fender roasted maple neck for 700. I can't decide if i want to dump the money into it or just ditch it and hunt for another keeper strat. opinions? how bad is the resale value on a US strat with a US replacement neck with no serial number?

 

[PDC]

I’ve never worried about resale value. If the guitar body has good sound characteristics, good hardware, good pickups, I wouldn’t think 2ce about a quality replacement neck for a guitar that I really liked. Warmoth or Musikraft if I want to spec things like width, back shape, radius, fret size - or check Stratosphere for a possible direct swap with the same Fender model neck.

 

[glpg80]

Unbolt the bad neck

Bolt on a great neck (Warmoth, Mighty mite, Kramer, charvel, jackson, etc.)

Rock out.

 

[Devin]

If sticking something in the truss rod hole stops it, i'd be inclined to just rig up something like that

 

[Greazygeo]

If you love the neck, take it to a luthier and get it fixed.

 

[Geo]

Fender necks have always been crap. I had a Custom Shop Strat with a Floyd Rose in the early 90's. I could swear the neck was made of rubber.

 

[Rick Lee]

I have had Musikraft make two necks for me and they play like butter. One was expensive because I wanted birdseye maple, but the other was plain Jane rosewood, though with the identical dimensions and it was half as expensive as the maple one. I'll never go elsewhere when I need a neck.

 

[Dave L]

If you love the neck, take it to a luthier and get it fixed.

Yeah, if you love the guitar as is and you´re willing to shell out money for a new neck, you should explore what it would cost to get someone to pop the board or skunkstripe off of the old one and fix it properly. I would pay more to get the old neck fixed, actually.

 

[cardinal]

Is this a biflex rod that adjusts at the head and the rattle stops if you put something on the truss rod nut?

I would just try to shove something in there to stop the rattle that also is easy to get back out for adjusting the rod. Not sure what that would be, but seems like there should be something.

I've also had bad luck with Fender necks. I've had one that was wavy and other where the truss rod maxed out before the neck straightened. Both were ultimately fixable but is as a PIA (wavy neck had to have the frets pulled and the board re-planed; the other one had to have that walnut plug extracted and washers put under the truss rod nut).

 

[psychodave]

I’d fix it. Remove the truss rod nut and use a syringe to inject thinned out glue or epoxy. It should fix it. If not you lost nothing. I think it is easily fixable.

 

[psychodave]

Also, you can get small syringes from pet supply stores. Get insulin needles as they are very small. You might need to fill them up a few times to get enough glue inside.

 

[cobrahead1030]

You could keep an eye out on TGP classified section for a nice used strat neck, if it doesn't work for you, those aren't tough to re-sell. There may be other places to find a good deal on one, but I've had pretty good luck over there, especially for fender compatible parts.

 

[Briman24]

I bought a charvel guitar for super cheap because truss rod was broken. I fixed it myself. Had to heat up the fretboard with irons and seperate the fretboard from the neck and then installed a new rod.
Yours should be fixable as mentioned above with glue or maybe add tension to the rod? Might need to put heavier guage strings on though after? But pretty sure glue from glue gun will do the trick. My charvel neck had silicon glue in the chanel at end of rod.