I need help changing a tremolo spring on a parker fly mojo

[igor]

Hello -

I have a refined parker fly mojo guitar (2006). I am new to these, so this is going to be a real newbie question.

When I got the guitar it had an 11 gauge spring installed, I would like to go up to the 12 (I purchased a 12 spring). I removed the strings, but now how do I remove the old spring? It is wedged in there very firmly and I don't see a way of loosening it from there. I read the manual several times, but it doesn't say anything specific about this, so maybe it is just supposed to come out, but not in my case, or at least I don't know the procedure. I thought I would ask before messing something up.

Can someone help me?

Thank you in advance,
Igor

[vjmanzo]

Hi Igor,

Welcome to the forum. I’ve had this issue before: you’re going to want to back up the threaded tension rod all the way so that it recedes into the body of the guitar, then bend the whammy bar all the way forward so that the spring compresses. That should release it unless some part of the spring is actually stuck in the t-bar; if that’s the case, try to lightly tap the side of the spring with the fat end of a screwdriver (or something comparable) so that the spring moves slightly. It will eventually fall out.

Try not to get frustrated and, depending on what year Fly you have, don’t let the pickguard fall and rip the battery out of your Fishman!

Here’s a guide for further info on setting up your bridge.

[igor]

Thank you so much for helping!

How do I "backup the threaded tension rod all the way so it recedes into the body of the guitar"?

Thank you again!

Yes, I am really careful with the battery - it's very awkward.


Igor

[vjmanzo]

Not a problem! Happy to help.

Here’s roughly what you’ve got cooking under the backplate:

You want to loosen the tension that the threaded rod puts on the flat spring by turning the tension wheel, which will cause the threaded rod to go inside of a small cavity in the guitar (located near the strap pin):

Go slowly, but that will, ultimately, take tension off of the flat spring by separating the t-bar and the three-ridge spring plate.

[igor]

Again - really appreciate your help here. I understand what you are saying I think, but so far no joy. Just to double check, I am turning the tension wheel counter clock wise against the 3 step T bar in the hopes of pushing the Long Tension Screw into the body away from the T-Bar? I have attached an image that hopefully shows this.

I would buy you a beer or a beverage of your choice if I could for helping me with this.

Igor

[vjmanzo]

No problem, Igor. Turning the wheel in the direction of this purple arrow should loosen the tension on the spring:

Eventually, the threaded rod will recede into the body cavity as much as it can and should allow you to remove the spring by doing some combination of the following: 1) putting the vibrato bar in and bending the bar all the way backward (as if raising the pitch with the vibrato bar) in which case, if you flip the Fly over, the spring may just fall out 2) gently tapping/prying the spring out of the t-bar teeth in which case, if you tilt the spring at a 22 degree angle, you may be able to slide it out.

This is one of those rare, but really annoying things; again, I've experienced this once, and it was on a used Fly. Complete pain in the ass, but, as long as you don't get upset and throw your guitar across the room, the spring will eventually find its way out. When I was doing this on my Fly, I finally got the spring free and clear and then I accidentally completely ripped the battery connector out of my piezo preamp

[igor]

Thank you again for your help!

Still no joy. I don't think the tension screw is receding into the body cavity at all. I'll try a few more times. I understand exactly what you are saying.

Question for you, do you think I may be able to just grab it with vice grips and squeeze the bejeezus out of it until it pops out?

[vjmanzo]

Gotcha! Okay—it’s possible that the threaded rod is jammed/stuck; you definitely want that to be able to move, so, no, don’t pry out the spring. Try a drop of oil on the threaded rod and light see if you can move it forward and back? There’s a notch in the top of the rod that aligns with an insert in the body, so it may have just become stuck over time.

[igor]

Alright! I was able to get the spring out - I used WD40 (that's all I had). It did not come out all that easily either. I am including some images with the whole thing fully disassembled in case it helps someone else in a similar predicament.

I do have a couple of other questions, I hope I am not imposing on your good will.

1. when I got the spring out by combination of twisting the whammy bar and applying the oil, one of the bridge posts sank (if you are looking from the bottom of the guitar). At first I panicked, and thought that I broke the whole thing. But I used a hex wrench and it seems to have gone back down / up again without any issues, seems to be ok. Any thoughts / advice on this? One of the pictures has an arrow pointing to the post from the back side that sank.
2. It appears that I can snap a new spring in place, but I can see that getting it out will be fairly tricky again. Any advice? It doesn't seem to be very easy. Is that correct, or should I perform some other manipulation to prevent this from the future.

You have been enormously helpful - I couldn't have done it without you.

Also, just FYI, I purchased another Mojo - this is a yellow with the GK3 pickup. bought it from guitar center sight unseen - it's apparently never been played, so I hope that goes well. I'll be putting a different spring in that one too, not sure but probably go with a 12 again.

[vjmanzo]

Nice!! Congrats!!

I wouldn’t be worried about the spring binding up like that again; I would venture to bet that the reason it was stuck like that was just normal wear and tear on that spring over the course of a few decades. That you’ve dislodged it should make it easier in the future, so, again, I wouldn’t worry about getting the spring back in there.

I’ve never heard of one of the bridge posts sinking a little bit, but if it becomes an issue where the bridge is not stable, a local guitar tech can most likely help to anchor those posts into the body.

Congrats on the yellow Mojo! I saw that one up there not too long ago! As long as you match the spring to the strings that you’re using, you won’t have any issues with the Brado system working in properly.

Like anything else though, just make a post and someone here who, like you, shares a passion for Flys will chime in; these guitars are mostly bulletproof, but they do have very specific failure points that most of us have dealt with in one way or another. You’re not imposing on our good will at all, and, now that you’ve troubleshot a stubborn spring, you can keep an eye out for the next post about such a thing and share your experiences! Thanks for sharing the images, which really does help pay it forward for future troubleshooters!

[igor]

Thank you again for your help, once I get the yellow mojo I'll post some pics.

[mmmguitar]

Please share pics and your impressions of that Mojo MIDI - I’d been eyeing it for at least a month, but kept telling myself I could just repaint my ‘97 MIDI and save a few grand (Taxi Cab Yellow is one of my favorite Fly colors that I’ve never owned). This community doesn’t know how relieved I feel any time a Fly listing I’m lusting after ends up in a good home.

[igor]

It occurs to me that there is an easy mod one can make so that you would never rip out the back with the battery case out of the guitar. I would just sodder some quick connects from the arduino/raspberry pi world with female and male pins, and this would allow you to completely remove the back of the guitar while you are working on it. Something like this:

Just a thought.

[vjmanzo]

Great suggestion, Igor. Thanks for the link.

The battery/battery enclosure(s)/need for a battery on the Fly is a bit of a pain point for me personally. I get why it is what it is, but, for crying out loud: how many times did you almost yank the battery cavity off of your guitar while you were working on the spring issue?!

You may have seen this video of an adapted Fly output jack we made:


I sometimes wonder if the most fulfilling feature of that jack is, actually, that I don’t have to deal with 9-volt batteries anymore and I can just keep my Fly plugged in all the time!!

[igor]

Whoa, I did not see that. That is definitely something I would like to do. Thank you.

[igor]

After spending some time replacing the spring that would not come out, I finally figured out what the problem was originally. After going thru all these steps and all the wonderful suggestions, after putting it all back together something did not sit well with me.... Yesterday I took it apart again, and I could not at first remove the 12 gauge spring that I put in, but then I figured out what the problem was, and maybe this will save someone some time.

The issue was the the bridge was screwed in on it's posts too far into the body which prevented the stair step from moving far enough into the neck direction to remove the spring.

Unscrewing the bridge posts and allowing the bridge to move "up" caused the spring to come out without any issues, I believe this was my problem in the first place.

At least this was a problem with this particular Mojo. I recently bought another mojo, made in the same year (2006) and the space inside where the spring is "feels" different in it's dimensions. I also replaced the spring there as well and had no particular issues.

Perhaps the mojo that I had trouble with the bridge posts were not properly screwed in all the way from the factory? I don't know, but the bridge height ultimately determined the ease with which the spring came out.

[vjmanzo]

Great info, Igor! Glad to read this update.

Hard to know where the blame falls with the posts; I’ve known a lot of people who have taken some major creative liberties while setting up Flys...and not in a good way!

I’m glad this wasn’t such a huge pain for you. I do have one Fly where I had to, effectively, remove the entire vibrato and put it back in to reset/undo what the previous owner had done (by intention or neglect, I don’t know). Glad you’re up and running again!