[mcmars]

I finally got around to swapping out the tuners. I tried reworking the nut slots, thinking they might be the problem binding on the strings, but the tuning problems remained after the nut work.

I was planning on some gotoh SD-90 tuners that looked like they might the easy swap. BUt once I got the old ones out, I realized the peghead hole size of 25/32" was perfect size for some classic grover tuners I had on hand and the single alignment hole located at 6:00 position lined up good enough to use without re-drilling. The tuner is held firm on the peghead by the threaded ferrule, so the alignment screw is just there to keep the tuners from twisting in the hole, small screw worked just fine for this application. I went to hardware store and got smallest pan head screw they had as it was 1/4" length, as opposed to the 1/2 " length that came with the epi tuners, as it made it easy to get enough bite with the smaller screw and not mess up the hole. It did the tuner swap in pairs, starting from top of headstock with the D and G tuners first and worked my way down so the bridge would not lose it position and require messing re-setting the intonation.

After getting guitar back to pitch, it was night and day difference, they held tune perfect, and they looked good on the guitar. If anyone else is having issues with the crappy OEM epi tuners on these series of re issue guitars, know the standard Grover with the 6:00 position for the small screw work just fine without any drilling and would be easy way to upgrade the tuners, but still be able to re-install the OEM tuners in the future.

Epi sent out the pickguard for free, but I got cold feet after watching a few youtube videos where people had some issues with the guards creating resonant buzzing and also having to drill into the guitar top and install what looked like some cheap hardware. Less is more for now!