gizmologist

There is a mod called Tweakable Everything that lets you adjust the strength of the reaction wheels from zero to twice their normal strength.

I've recently experienced the "ships freak out on load" bug, when the ships fly apart, and with the misplaced engine exhaust and all that. I'm not sure if Tweakscale is to blame or not, but I've come up with a workaround for whatever it is. When loading up the game, BEFORE you go to the tracking center to load your ship, go to the VAB first. You don't need to do anything there, just go there and then go back to the space center. Then you can go to the tracking center and load your ship and it won't fly apart. I suspect that some module isn't initializing properly when we go straight to the ship from a new game load. Going to the VAB first initializes it properly, and then works fine. But that's just a guess.

I have also been having this problem. I haven't found a solution per se, but I have found a workaround that allows me to continue using Tweakscale. BEFORE going to the tracking center and loading up your ship, go to the VAB. You don't have to do anything there, but you have to go there. (I suspect doing this initializes Tweakscale properly, whereas going straight to your ship does not.) Once you've been there, you can go to the tracking center and activate your ship, and it won't fly apart. It seems to be a pretty reliable, if clumsy, workaround.