I understand Ceri. Vinnypop thinks I'm a female and I've not bothered to correct him. He says such sweet things to me!

Thanks Ceri No prob's here.

Just for fun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsKQsukYPJY

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For setup help you could go here - http://www.fender.com/support
For a guitars build date, try here - http://www.guitardaterproject.org/

Cheers guys - C

Ok silverbursted here we go. My little walkthrough on neck removal, with pictures. Hopefully it will bolster your confidence on what is quite a easy job.

1 The Hotrod



Note the use of cushions. The hotrod's finish is very very delicate.

2, Slacken the tuning right off, no strings should ring any kind of note.



3, Capo the first fret. It stops the strings coming off the tuner posts and generaly makes the job much quicker and easier.



4 undo screw 1, then move onto screw 2 diagonaly across from that screw.



screw 3



screw 4

.

lift the neck out of the pocket.

Heres the heel


heres the pocket

.

To put it back together simply follow that lot in reverse order. Remember not to rush and that the guitar is fragile. Work on a clean flat surface and as you can see, i wont operate on that guitar without a good bit of padding going on.

Good luck and all the best.

Please let me know when you've read this so i can remove the heel and pocket pic's.

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No no and no

Haha, your right, "sometime after 1987" is certainly generic. And yes the 57 Vintage Hot Rod was introduced in Jan 07, so at least I was able to lop off 20 years. I will email the customer service folks to see if I can get the answer, otherwise I will be removing the neck.
Thanks everyone for their input and direction. I knew I came to the right place.

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Fender - Vintage 57' Hot Rod
Fender - Yngwie Malmsteen Strat
A couple of Gibson Les Pauls
A couple of 80's era pointy Super Strats

Wow Niki, that is great!!! I hope you did not do that on my account, but I appreciate the walk through. For some reason, I was thinking that the data plate was a cover for the "actual" mounting screws, and I was afraid of misaligning the neck. But now I see those are the attaching screws. Thanks, I am going to go do it now. Thanks again.[/i]

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Fender - Vintage 57' Hot Rod
Fender - Yngwie Malmsteen Strat
A couple of Gibson Les Pauls
A couple of 80's era pointy Super Strats