MIJ VI trem arm spring/travel

[Milocj]

I have a MIJ VI from the run in 2012-2013. Everything works great including tuning stability with the use of the trem/vibrato, however, there is very little movement to lower the pitch when set up with the trem lock working properly. It sounds and feels like the bottom of the collet is hitting the bottom of the trem cavity.

The arm on this one doesn't have the swaged out bottom to hold it in place like the US models so I don't think the arm is going in deeper than the collet. Do they make a stronger spring that works better with the MIJ VIs or is the spring in these just weaker and an American spring would work better?

Thanks for any help.

[Milocj]

Does anybody know where the Allparts Tremolo Spring Kit falls as far as stiffness compared to the MIJ spring used on the 2012-2013 VI tremolo unit? Somebody on Reverb sent me an offer for one but I don't want to waste any money to find out it's softer.

[MattK]

Seems like you may be better served by going to a specialty hardware place which stocks similar springs you can test directly?

[Milocj]

I may have to do that. I suppose the arm might also be going too deep into the collet as there's no notch or anything to lock it into the collet. It appears to be the original arm based on the way it was packed but I don't have any idea if this is the way they made the MIJ arms/collets. I've only had AVRI Jazzmaster trems or the newer version from the latest MIM Jazzmasters.

[GilmourD]

So, I had the arm on one of my import trems hitting the bottom of the route before I received the Staytrem arm that I ended up installing on it. I gave the arm a little bit of a bend (ya know, the ol' hammer trick) so it had a bit more friction in the collet but I also didn't push it ALL the way down and that helped.

[Milocj]

I'm going to give that a try tonight. If it helps stop the bottoming out I'll get a drill stop that fits the arm so it can't go in too deep. Otherwise I'll pull the trem and try to match a stronger spring up to what it already has.

[Milocj]

So, it is the arm being long enough to go far enough through the collet. If I push it all the way in it bottoms in the cavity pretty quickly. If I leave it out enough so that it doesn't bottom out the arm there's a reasonable amount of travel in the spring for my use.

I guess I'll either look for a shaft collar that fit the arm without interfering with the strings around it, or cut half an inch or so off the arm. Maybe when my order at Stay trem comes up I'll give that a shot in the Bass VI before putting it on my Jazzmaster.

[andy_tchp]

Just put a slight bend into the short section of the bar.

Obviously no hammer required to do this BTW.

[GilmourD]

Just put a slight bend into the short section of the bar.

Obviously no hammer required to do this BTW.

I stuck mine in my household radiator. The sections of it had the perfect space between them to fit the bar and they're some fairly heavy metal from whenever the house was built in the early 1900s and everything is curved, so it doesn't introduce any hard bends.

Yeah, most things I do are janky and weird but I MacGyver them into working. LOL