Congrats on your new old guitar! If you buy a 42 years old guitar sight unseen, all kinds of problems are to be expected and the first of them being the seller lying his head off about the guitar's condition. Doing this without any experience in fixing problems is kind of risky, but on the bright side you bought a guitar that is quite likely having a good substance to restore to its old glory.
Depending on string gauge, you may need more springs to get the vibrato less floaty, the 6 anchor screws are not meant for this. High action is a more complex matter depending on neck angle, truss rod relief and bridge setup.
There are 2 ways to go:
1. take the occasion to learn all about basic guitar setup and maintenance, possibly watching several hours of videos on the topic on YouTube (as you may have just experienced, watching only one may put you on a wrong track) and reading several of the blog articles about that. It's not a super-rare or valuable instrument and you can use it to learn valuable new skills. It's not rocket science but it would be quite tedious and redundant to reiterate all of it here, sorry.
2. take it to a luthier/tech for a proper inspection and setup. It will cost you a few bucks but will give you fast results, helps a man eating food and he will (hopefully) do the job better than you could do on your first attempts.
Thank you, Homer, I have had guitars since I was 14/15 years old. I started with a lower-end Ibanez with a floyd at the time. and made my way to many guitars I am 49. I had two Strats in my hands a few years ago:
Once I sold one and the other, I returned to the guitar center I bought it from. The first one with a Billy Corgan Special Edition ( I miss it) but my most regretted instrument was the other one, a Japanese Strat from 1989/1991 I had looked up the serial number, I felt bad about spending the money at the time, it had a Seymour Duncan Bridge Humbucker.
Now I thought by acquiring a Tokai I would rediscover the same feeling.
The seller had described it "The neck is straight with low n' quick action but most importantly feels like true love in your hands. The electronics are functioning and the single coils deliver all the springy, stratty deliciousness you can ask for." I can't agree and was misled by him. The strings were not even put on the right way like they were super loose. I just detuned the guitar to relieve the pressure on the neck, so as you can see in the pics the vibrato is flushed to the body now.
I am ready to give this guitar a try because of the reputation of the Tokai guitars, I will take it to either the local guitar store near me in PA or I guess Guitar Center for a tune-up/Setup, I don't have a luthier near me, around Scranton.
a few questions:
1. as you can see the High E metal saddle is not straight, but pulling inward toward the B saddle, does it mean that this guitar needs a new bridge or just adjustment?
2. There are 3 springs underneath the body holding the bridge/ vibrato should I replace them and use 4 instead of 3 (I use thicker gauge guitar strings than the one that came with it, usually E.B. heavy top skinny bottom)?
3. Do you feel this is an aberration, to be willing to replace the bridge pickup with a Humbucker? I saw some Tokai pick-ups for sale on Reverb, but I think it might be risky to buy it if it is not properly working and the output might not be strong enough for heavy distortion compared to a new pickup brand.
4. The frets are okay but certainly used, do you guys rer-fret yours at some points on your vintage Tokai?
Thank you so much I appreciate all your answers