So I bought a used USA made Stratocaster® Special HSS with FR (aka the Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster®) about a month ago and it seems the truss rod adjustment nut is stripped. I have the correct size (and brand new) 3/16'' allen wrench for it but the wrench barely gets any hold of the nut.

Now this particular model doesn't have the thick walnut plug at the headstock for the truss rod route but instead a very thin black plastic plug. It looks like I MIGHT be able to just back out the adjustment nut from the route if I can just loosen it. Now what I would want to know is if it's just as simple as taking out the stripped truss rod nut and putting a new one in? Any tips on how to get the nut out without f***ing up the guitar? Any actual info whether it is even possible to just back out the nut from the truss rod route at the headstock or would there be something else stopping me from getting it out this way?

Any help would be welcome!

Hi Hansi, welcome to the Forum.

If your neck has the black plastic at the trussrod entry hole rather than walnut then it is a Mexican or Korean made Strat, not American.

Which would be neither here nor there, except...

Fender have been strangely inconsistent with mixing metric and imperial sized parts across models from different factories. For example, my US Strat takes imperial allen keys on all its parts, my Japanese Strat takes metric and my Korean Tele has a mixture of metric and imperial within one instrument. I don't know what's going onto Mexican Strats at present.

Therefore, you may in fact have the wrong allen key for the trussrod. It sounds negligible, but actually hex top nuts are remarkably sensitive to the right sized allen key. The very closest imperial key won't grip properly in a metric nut and vice versa, no matter how tiny the difference in size. Worse, the wrong sized key will easily damage the nut.

So before thinking about more dramatic treatment I'd want to try finding exactly the right sized allen key first, and see if your issue is as simple as that. Pop along to your local hardware store or look online for a good quality set of allen keys including both metric and imperial sizes. Not expensive, and useful for ever more, so a handy purchase.

Then sit down and try them one by one and find the one that fits really snugly - regardless of quoted sizes. The right fit is one that you don't have to push hard to get in, but that has no play in it whatsoever once it is inserted.

Proceed from there.

I'm not saying you definitely haven't stripped your rod. But it happens less often than people sometimes think. Look to the simpler possibilities first.

Good luck - C

Thanks for the reply Ceri.

I reckon it's safe to say that it is in fact a US made Strat though...


These particular guitars were strictly made in the US starting from '92 (as Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster® until '01) to around 2005.

And I checked the parts diagram for the correct parts and according to it the correct allen key size is indeed 3/16''. Weird enough, the parts diagram also suggests the replacement part for the truss rod nut to be the same one used on Mexican Strats. I even double checked this from Fender's customer support. I did a test with a bunch of metric allen keys too to see if they would fir but the closest one was the 5mm key and even that was a bit too big. And that's only a bit bigger than 3/16''. The thing is that I can clearly see that the allen key slot on the nut is pretty round with barely visible corners.

So I can definitly say that I have not stripped the nut but I'm almost 100% sure that the former owner did though.

Sorry mate, they made Floyd Rose strats in Mexico, Korea, Japan and the US.

Did they all have the Deluxe prefix?

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No no and no

Hmm. Well that's interesting. The Guitar Dater Project says yours was made in 2002, but the black plastic liner to the rod access on a US guitar is new to me. Care to show us a picture of that, just out of interest? And I'd be curious to hear anyone else's input on that issue.


Yes - though none of that contradicts what I said above. An absolutely snug fitting allen key may still grip that nut and it is worth trying pretty hard to acheive that because the next bit is not good news:


If that is right then you are in trouble.

At this point someone usually turns up on these type of theads to recommend this tool:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... e_Kit.html

But before they do, several reasons why that isn't going to work. The first is that it will probably cost more than just finding a replacement Fender neck on Ebay. The second is that it is really intended for use on the Gibson style thread-on nuts illustrated on that page.

Unfortunately, the hex type nut on your modern Fender neck is almost certainly welded onto the rod, especially if yours is the "bi-flex" type. Here are a couple of different trussrods of mine. Neither is a Fender but they are both double-action rods and illustrate the problem:



As you can see, even if you use that Stew-Mac tool to dig down to the end of the rod you still aren't any further forward because you can't remove the old nut as it is welded on. You'll have merely wrecked the front of the headstock in the process. Put all thoughts of removing that black plastic access liner out of your mind: as you now see, it don't work like that.

By all means, take the guitar to a very good, well recommended luthier (not just a guitar store "tech") and ask for a second opinion. But it doesn't look hopeful.

So what you need to do is try and find an allen key that will grip on what remains of that damaged nut and then make any adjustments you need to very, very carefully. As I said in the previous post, that will probably have little to do with the "spec'd" key size.

Something a luthier might try is gently flexing the neck with carefully placed clamps to take pressure off the nut so that the rod can be turned with the absolute minimum of force, if the key is only barely gripping it. I strongly suggest you don't try that unless you really know what you are doing. But it is a possibility for someone who does, and worth paying for.

All of this means you have a neck you are going to have to treat carefully, get set up and then hope not to need to touch again too often or at all.

Or if you only just bought the guitar see if you can return it to the previous owner and let him deal with the problem he's created.

Tricky, huh?

Good luck - C

Yes, I am aware they have made (and are still making) Floyd Rose Strats in Mexico, Japan and Korea too but they only made this particular model, the Stratocaster® Special HSS with FR / Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster®, in the US.

Here's a few examples of the same model from other people:
Fender 2002 Stratocaster Special with FR
Fender 1992 Stratocaster Classic Floyd Rose

And here's even a '92 USA Sambora for measure and it has the same truss rod route as mine and the ones above. EDIT: Oops, that wasn't a Sambora Strat, just a Classic Floyd Rose. Seller's text threw me off.

The earlier one's made in the '90s had the FN-prefix meaning they were for 'export market'. The one's made in the 2000's had the DZ-prefix.

Mine would be exactly the same as the first link except it's in 3-tone sunburst like so:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d37/_Hansi_/guitars_n_stuff/NewFloydStratDay/FloydStrat03.jpg
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d37/_Hansi_/guitars_n_stuff/NewFloydStratDay/FloydStrat04.jpg

I might be retarded but I'm not stupid.

Easy now. Nobody thinks so.

We're out to help, nothing else.

Cheers - C

Heh, just a bit of joking.

Well the "welded to the truss rod" part about the nut is a bit discouraging though. Why on earth would they sell official replacement truss rod nuts if there's no way in hell of changing the nut without tearing the neck into pieces...?

I mean I did some research on this and some people have succesfully changed the nut on guitars even with the walnut plug at the truss rod route by simply first heating the plug until it came off or drilling the plug and then just backing out the truss rod nut with an oversize allen key filed at the end so it's kinda smaller at the end but then you can tap it into the stripped key slot...

Some Strats do have a separate metal "gate" pretty much right under the string nut which would make it impossible to remove the truss rod nut through the route but this one doesn't seem to have that either.

The replacement nuts are for those who snapped of theirs. The intent is to thread the rod and put the new nut on it. I believe that's what the Stewmac tool does. I cannot see your picks by my guess would be to send it to a luthier and have the neck refinished or just look for a new neck.

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Mm - it's the kind of joke that often leads to pages of dreary fights on forums. We mostly try and keep it friendly round here.


By all means try it.

If you do, please would you take plenty of photos so's we can see how you get on? Always more to be learned.

Be clear: I do not know whether you have a bi-flex or single-action trussrod in your neck (though the vintage tuners suggest a single-action one) and I have no way of knowing whether the nut is screwed on or welded.

But I'm not hopeful.

I've seen extremely expert, experienced people excavate a trussrod by digging out the skunk stripe and repairing it that way. That is a very messy route to go and requires a lot of remedial work afterwards to put things right. Economically, it just isn't worth it except on a vintage or very highly prized instrument. Replacement necks are much cheaper, and if your nut truly is wrecked then this is one case where Fender will sell you a new neck, contrary to their normal policy:

http://www.fender.com/support/faqs.php#q7

Still. I'd try and make an allen key fit first.

Good luck - C

Oh, one more suggestion. There's always these:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... nches.html

Cheers - C

Thought I'd give an update on this in case somebody runs into the same problem. Unfortunately I didn't snap any photos when I replaced the truss rod nut but it was a fairly straightforward job anyway so maybe pictures aren't that important this time.

What I did was I just removed the locking nut to reveal as much of the truss rod route as possible. This allowed me to get a better view of the truss rod nut so I could get a good grip of the old nut with a slightly filed 3/16" allen key. Then I just backed out the nut until it came loose from the truss rod and grabbed it with a pair of fine pliers and pulled the nut out. Took the new truss rod nut and sprayed a bit of synthetic lubricant into the nut thread before putting it in and tightening with an allen key. Put the locking nut back on and voilà, problem solved! A set of two new replacement truss rod nuts cost me $4.95 plus shipping on eBay so not a very expensive job either.

Of course the "unusual" truss rod route with the black plastic made the job easier since I didn't have to drill or otherwise remove the walnut plug but I don't think that would have been too hard either.

congrats on the repair job. I'm glad it worked out for you.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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Good, well there ya go. Luckily you didn't have the welded type after all.

I wish you'd taken photos though: that would have been useful.

Did you get the black plastic tube out or wasn't it necessary?

Cheers - C