Strat Expert needed ( Trem replacement ?)

teddis

Fractal Fanatic
Hi,
So this Strat I acquired from my deceased guitar instructor. God rest his soul.

I LOVE the feel of the neck, I replaced the stock pickups, I love the sound, but I am constantly fighting with this very odd ball Trem. I think it is called a “Freeflyte” Tremolo.

The guitar I believe is an 83 Elite ?

I would to LOVE to replace this bridge ( Trem ) with something more modern....but as it has no rear routing, I have no idea of Options.
Any Strat junkies have any guidance ? For a drop in maybe ? Wishful thinking:)

Cheers !
 

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Thanks, will look a that.
At a glance it looks kinda...big ? Was hoping for a traditional like setup.....if possible...
 
Barring some sort of top-mount tremolo, like the one above, or without a massive body rebuild, I think you are out of luck. The routing for the Freeflyte trem removes all of the wood needed for traditional trem mounts so there is nothing to screw the posts into, not to mention you'd need to route the back anyway.

If it were me, I'd buy a replacement body and a new trem from Warmoth or Stratosphere or somewhere then sell the original body/trem for what you can get for it.
 
Yes, indeed I thought this may be difficult because of the solid back....and existing routing...damn it....did not want to Frankenstein it !
 
Or, I suppose you could try and go hardtail with the guitar. You'd want to find a surface mount bridge that is large enough to cover the original cavity and still have enough wood for the mounting holes.
 
Have the exact same guitar but with a rosewood fretboard. It’s a blade type trem, nothing like it, how it’s mounted. The trem arm is worth a lot on its own. Hard to find. Body swap is the answer. Check out the stratosphere site they have lots of fender parts.
 
As Mr Fender said or set it up as a hardtail .
It has no direct replacement and the body is radically different in the rout.
 
Thanks for the replies all.
I have it basically in a locked (down only] setup. changing strings on this guitar due to fatigued metal as a PITA !

I was hoping for a trem only upgrade .....but doesn’t not look possible. Like I said, I don’t want to Frankenstein strat it....
 
Funny thing - I'd never seen one of these before and the same day you posted the thread I saw one on Reverb while just browsing...

Also, I saw a post on another forum (thought it was here but it's not) that said the key to making this bridge work is to use Fender "bullet" strings due to the way the "ball" is attached compared to other strings.

I found it (again) here:

https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/simply-key-to-use-properly-freeflyte-tremolo-system.448049/
 
Here's a post about the FreeFlyte tremolo to get it working properly. You might not need to replace it.
https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/simply-key-to-use-properly-freeflyte-tremolo-system.448049/

Funny thing - I'd never seen one of these before and the same day you posted the thread I saw one on Reverb while just browsing...

Also, I saw a post on another forum (thought it was here but it's not) that said the key to making this bridge work is to use Fender "bullet" strings due to the way the "ball" is attached compared to other strings.

I found it (again) here:

https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/simply-key-to-use-properly-freeflyte-tremolo-system.448049/

It was here LOL!
 
Yes, and they can be set up to work just fine. You don't need bullet strings but you do need to set the ball end nice and straight so that it doesn't snag when you use the trem and come back in a different spot.
 
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