Truss rod in mid '70s D-35

I have a customer's mid '70s D-35 in my shop for a lot of work... bridge replacement, neck reset, cracks, headstock break, binding, frets.... Well I got it all back together, strung it up, doing the setup, and the truss rod won't straighten the neck. Nut turns... everything seems ok, but neck doesn't move. When I was steaming the neck joint, I noticed steam coming out of the truss rod opening by the headstock, and the whole neck got warm. This wasn't for an extended period. I only had to apply steam for 4 minutes to get the neck off, but I'm wondering if something happened in there...

What type of truss rod did Guild use in those? Simple rod in curved channel, or one of those straight ones encased in aluminum? I had one of the aluminum ones fail on a guitar because it got glued solid in the channel, and they have to move freely to work. I've never had a simple curved rod one fail other than breaking.

stormin1155 said:

I have a customer's mid '70s D-35 in my shop for a lot of work... bridge replacement, neck reset, cracks, headstock break, binding, frets.... Well I got it all back together, strung it up, doing the setup, and the truss rod won't straighten the neck. Nut turns... everything seems ok, but neck doesn't move. When I was steaming the neck joint, I noticed steam coming out of the truss rod opening by the headstock and the whole neck got warm. This wasn't for an extended period. I only had to apply steam for 4 minutes to get the neck off, but I'm wondering if something happened in there...

What type of truss rod did Guild use in those? Simple rod in curved channel, or one of those straight ones encased in aluminum? I had one of the aluminum ones fail on a guitar because it got glued solid in the channel, and they have to move freely to work. I've never had a simple curved rod one fail other than breaking.

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Don't want to clog a thread with idle speculation but what you describe sure makes it sound like yes "something happened in there".
Sounds like some kind of crack is allowing steam to get into the truss channel.
Since the truss is anchored in the heel, that crack may or "whatever" it is may mean the truss is no longer anchored.
Also wondering if the headstock break may have been part of an incident that caused the truss to break loose?
Sorry to hear about the issue, figure it must not have been visible at the heel when you were prepping it for the re-set.