Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello all. A few months ago my 350 started making a buzzing noise that was only detectable when playing unplugged and seemed to only rattle when I struck certain notes. Irritated and obsessed I began a relentless quest to identify the problem. After a few days I finally solved the mystery. One of the truss rod nuts had almost worked its way free so the washer was loose enough to cause the rattle. To fix it at that time I just hand tightened it.

Well its back! It took just few moments to put 2 + 2 together before I removed the truss rod cover.

The action is very nice right now, so I don’t want to affect the truss rod tension by applying to much torque to the truss rod nut.

Now for my questions: My guitar dates to 91 so it should have the new style truss rod, but there is an aluminum bar in the truss rod cavity that both rods pass through. That sounds like the description of the old style truss rod. I don’t think I can tighten away with out worry of affecting the action. Or can I? What about applying some adhesive, what kind or brand should I use? Any suggestions? Anyone else had a similar problem? How did you solve it?
Thanks in advance - Condo

Both systems have the spacer bar separating the two rods.

You really shouldn't have to do anything more than tighten the nut to hold it. However, I guess it wouldn't hurt to use a bit of Loctite, making sure you use only the blue formula.

Welcome John, you've just joined a very happy family of RIC crazies, loonies and nutcases! Which category do you fall under?

As you can see from the above post, even the CEO of RIC gets involved here, a very welcome involvement, I might add.

You have the new type of truss rods, they too have a bar that the nuts tighten up against. You can just tighten away but I would suggest applying some backward pressure on the headstock to help release some of the tension on the truss rods.

Wow, you guys are fast! Thanks for the info. And Thanks for welcoming me into the RIC forum. - Condo

Welcome aboard, Condo.
Your rod system is normal with the spacer bar.
I would suggest loosening the strings a bit (or applying some backward pressure on the headstock like Jeff said) and tightening the loose rod nut for a 1/16 turn (this will just straighten the neck for a tiny bit) with a 1/4" hex socket wrench and see if the rattling goes away. You might not even have to do any gluing if this works out.

Yeah, I'd just tighten the nut enough so it has a little pressure against the bar so it doesn't work loose again, a little turn like Paul suggested won't really do much so don't worry about changing your action, if it does use even less, just snug it up so that it can't work loose, if you are really worried about changing your action, use the blue loctite like JH suggested.

i got my 4003 in march of 2001. after a few weeks of playing it i also noticed a rattle in the neck.
it turns out the rods were very loose.it came straight from the factory that way.i took it to my guitar tech, he tightend them and i have had no problem since.