How did this happen?

[MSilvers]

So the other day I was noticing that my Stingray would buzz when the cable got pushed around, so I decided I would quickly loosen the nut around the jack just to try to get some dust off it. I was trying to un-tighten it for awhile and after it wouldn't unscrew I finally managed to get it off by holding onto the bass a different way. When I finally got it off and re-screwed it, I plugged in my bass and only got a loud buzz with no signal coming out

After some investigating I realized what happened was while I was trying to un-tighten the bolt it wasn't un-screwing but I was rotating the actual jack over and over again, and eventually the seven wires that connect to the jack got twisted up so badly that a bunch of them broke.

The good news is I'm in a great Music Engineering program at school and I was able to get together with a grad student for 4 hours a couple days later and re-construct the bass (which works perfectly now). My question is if there's a good explanation for why the jack wouldn't un-screw? At this point I'm just gonna stay away from messing with the jack, but I think it'd be good to know exactly what happened so I can avoid any similar problems in the future. Thanks.

 

[Toyoman]

You first unscrew the 2 phillps head screws in the input jack plate.Then the jackplate and input jack will be able to be pulled out slightly.Hold the back of input jack (so it won't spin) and unscrew the input jack nut with correct size nut driver and input jack will slide out of the jackplate.Your bass does have a input jack plate doesn't it? If you don't remove jack plate first (and hold the back of input jack) i think you can see why you had the problem.You think it is loosening but is actually spinning thus creating your problem.