Hey folks,
An update. First, I did some research and it appears my guitar was manufactured several years earlier than it was advertised, in 1982, which explains why it has the old-style rods!
I had to make some additional modifications to get this working properly. First I had to replace the adjusting nuts, which at this point were totally stripped from all my testing and experimenting. Luckily Fender MIM truss rod nuts are exactly the right thread size for the Rick truss rods. They have a nice wide allen socket at the top.
https://reverb.com/item/257145-genuine- ... ckage-of-2 . I did have to cut them a bit shorter (remove material from the threaded end) and also remove some metal tabs from the inside of the nut, there's like some metal separating the threaded area of the inside from the allen shaped area, which serves as a 'stop' for your rod. I just punched the metal tabs out. I actually fracked up my truss rod threads not realizing these tabs were stopping the rod from moving. The rods had no more room to advance when I torqued the nuts and it ended up destroying the threads. I heard a giant POP and feared I had really ruined the rod, like snapped it or something, but it was just the threads skipping inside the nut. I had to cut some additional material off the rods and re-cut the threads. I think in all I've removed maybe 3" inches from each rod and they still seem to function just fine.
I also added a washer to both the top and bottom of the tension block. The nuts will dig into the aluminum on top AND the rods will do the same on the bottom, so this was a necessary fix.
See photo below. It adjusts easily and does not obstruct the name plate at all! Unfortunately I did have to remove a bit of material from the headstock so that these larger nuts would not protrude, which would otherwise cause the truss rods to possibly bend and also obstruct the name plate. I maybe could have accomplished this without removing material, but I did it anyways, and, well, it's not the end of the world I guess. You can't see when the cover is on anyways.
Now that I was able to get the neck relief set where I wanted it I started noticing issues with some other components that were not noticeable before!
First, the bridge saddles for the B and E strings were cut a bit too low. They buzzed like crazy in a way that I could not adjust out. So the only way to solve it was to remove the bridge, remove the offending saddles and cut some feeler gauge to use as a shim underneath those 4 saddles. It gave me an opportunity to get a closer look at this custom made bridge I was so curious about. The quality is much better than what Rick makes these days.
It appears it was manufactured by "Stars Guitars." There's little information about them online, but I did find this-
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11598 . Actually there is a bit more info out there if you Google "Stars Guitars San Francisco." It's funny, this guitar was sold by someone in Michigan and shipped to me, in San Francisco, where this custom bridge was originally built!
Anyways, I shimmed those saddles and the buzz was removed.
Onto the next issue. It was never clear before because I couldn't get enough relief out of the neck, but my frets are not all level. Not totally surprising for such an old instrument. I've got things adjusted pretty good and I noticed one trouble-spot, the fourth fret buzzes against the E strings when they are fretted on the 3rd fret. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I just filed the damn thing down a tiny tiny bit, and eliminated the buzz. Eventually I may pay for a fret level, but for now, I am fine.
All in all, I've gotten the guitar to a place where it plays well enough and sounds great. I think I could probably get the neck flatter and the action lower if I got the frets leveled and replaced my 12-saddle nut, as some of the grooves may be worn or cut a bit too low. Currently, if I go any flatter with the rods, I start to get some open-string buzzing near the nut. But for now, I am happy with it as is!
