[gorgoroth]

hello, recently i got one of my old guitars returned to me, well the strings are very old, and one of them broke last night - no problem, i can fix that easily - the problem is, today i picked it up and started playing, forgetting that one of the strings broke the previous night. The other strings obviously had gotten sharper because of the loss of tension from the broken string, and of course, being old strings, another one broke, directly next to the first one.
I was starting to string it again now, and lo and behold the floating bridge has sunk way down into the chasm it should normally sit atop because of the intense pressure of the springs. Well, i thought i would attempt to remedy this situation by pulling up on the bridge, trying to bring it back to it's original position, but it's so tight i'm afraid i'm going to break the thing. i noticed that the other strings had become so sharp because of this i'm afraid they will break as well, being very old strings, so i tuned them down to a point where they didn't sound like i was plucking an extremely high-pitched banjo that was ready to snap.
i'm afraid, however, that even re-stringed and re-tuned, there isn't enough pressure from the strings to keep the bridge floating instead of it's current "sunk" state. i adjusted the springs in the back to try and help, as i read at the ibanez technical site, but still it takes a significant amout of pressure to lift the bridge up to a normal state, and i doubt that the strings will create an adequate amount of that pressure.
please help, any advice would be greatly appreciated, this is driving me nuts and i cant afford to take it in to a shop to get set up.

[Ultimate Garage Band]

You say you were pulling up on the bridge to get it back in position but wouldn't you actually push down on the trem arm to do that? I'm confused.

At any rate, you must also consider that if you're putting a lighter gauge set of strings on the guitar than the old set, the trem will sit down in the cavity. You'll have to back out the screws that hold the spring clip in place a bit. It's an adjusting process that can take hours the first time you do it. Be patient.