If you want to skip five minutes of listening to horrible guitar sounds, here is summary:
I put helical thread repair insert into sustain block of 1980's imitation Stratocaster. That's it.
I think method of tremolo attachment for Fender Strat type is some kind of curse upon mankind. They are already loose when they are brand new, and only get worse. "Fix" for most people is to put teflon plumber tape on threads...which just makes me CRINGE! Why do they continue to make such poor design garbage?? I guess...because we continue to purchase...because our idols played this model guitar...so we like them.
This Memphis strat has some bizarre feature: 50mm (2 inch) string spacing...as in 10mm between string. As far as I may find, there is NO manufacture of ANY replacement strat tremolos, blocks, etc, with 50mm string spacing. So, with stripped tremolo arm threads, I had only one shot at repair. Only solution I could think of was using a helical threaded insert. Zinc blocks are soft like warm butter, and material around arm hole was already very thin. But, I could think of no other solution, and took my chances with power drill. Drill bit cut through this zinc block like it was not there...but block maintained structure. Installation of helicoil successful!
Most important thing to note; if you also find yourself with loose wiggle stick, I think best is first to replace zinc block with steel or brass block. It will still be loose to some degree, as they ALL are, but at least it will be new and better. But, if you want to try to install helicoil in your block, get the longest helicoil. They come in various lengths, but typically "1" and "3" lengths. "1" length is diameter x 1, "3" length is diameter x 3. That simple. You want as much thread as possible, so choose 3. Longer would be better, but I don't think there is longer. Maybe they can be stacked? I don't know, but if you stacked, and threads didn't match, it would be difficult to remove coils.
Good luck! This worked well enough, that I may repeat process on all strat tremolos, even on new units as pre-emptive measure against wear. 😈
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