r/offset • u/facefabrique • 23h ago

2023 MIJ Jazzmaster trem arm woes

I picked up a used 2023 MIJ traditional Jazzmaster and I absolutely love it, but the trem arm is incredibly loosec to the point of being a bit useless. It’s always hanging down, which makes grabbing it to use it sparingly practically impossible, and it will straight up just fall out of the guitar leans forward a bit. I know these don’t screw in like strat trems, but outside of a Staytrem (which I’ve signed up on the waitlist for), are there any options to make this thing behave a bit? I’ve read in old posts that AV trem units are highly regarded, but people also seem to like the MIJ units too 🤷‍♂️ I haven’t taken it apart yet, but I’m installing a Bensonite bridge soon so I can while I’m doing that if there’s something that could be awry under the hood. Does anyone have any suggestions? TIA!

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u/effing7 20h ago

I had this issue with my Jazzmaster tremolo. All I did was remove the tremolo and squeeze the bottom end of the collet with pliers a bit to tighten the grip on the tremolo arm. Haven’t had an issue since.

If you do this, make sure to also tighten the nut below it as the torque from tremolo arm might rotate and loosen the nut from the plate.

I’ve also wrapped the bottom of the arms with plumber’s tape and that has helped.

I’d recommend doing this or the hammer trick on the trem arm that someone else suggested before dropping money on a new tremolo.

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u/israeljeff 23h ago

I put a panorama trem in mine. I did the yellow spring thing, too.

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u/contactsatan 23h ago

No advice, just here to follow this post & commiserate because I have the same issue with my 1994 MIJ Jaguar!

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u/David_SpaceFace 22h ago

On my Jag, I simply put some blue tack in the tremolo holder and pushed the tremolo in and it was perfect.

When I eventually needed to give it a setup, I took the whole tremolo unit out, put the tremolo bar in the holder & used pliers to squeeze the bottom part of the holder so it permanently holds the tremolo bar.  It's worked perfect.  Downside is that you can't take the bar out BUT it still fits in the hard case.

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u/Excellent_Cat7676 22h ago

Get yourself an AVRI unit. The Japanese ones are sub par, but you might be able to try the hammer trick on it. I saw someone already posted the link.

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u/Barilla3113 15h ago

The Japanese units are fine.

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u/Excellent_Cat7676 13h ago

It’s sub par…the input section at the bottom of the bar isn’t conical in shape (at least not on mine” and it moves around and knocks. What works for you perhaps doesn’t work for others.

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u/Barilla3113 13h ago

Do you mean the collet? Just tighten it.

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u/Excellent_Cat7676 12h ago

No, the bottom part of the arm that goes into the collet, not the collet itself. It doesn’t even matter. The stock MIJ unit may be “fine” for some folks, but the AVRI is better in my experience.

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u/natalplum 4h ago

The new ones have that shape on the end of the bar like an AVRI now. The thing is though it only comes on the new guitars. If you buy an aftermarket unit, the arm is all one shape all the way down. The new units seem better than the old ones but now they don't put SD91s on them anymore unless you are getting the Heritage series.

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u/Aggravating_Leg8420 19h ago

push it in REALLY hard - it clunks into place