Re: Replacing Pickups?

Squier <squier@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

7th_string <macoulter@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Has anyone replaced pickups in a guitar?
Can someone give me an idea on the level of difficulty?

I have a mexican strat and I was thinking of putting Texas Special
pickups in it.

Would you take all the strings off to do this?
(I wouldn't think that would be good for the neck)

Thanks
7th_string


It's very easy to do.
All you will need is a phillips head screwdriver and pencil
soldering gun (25 watts - 40 watts is fine) and some thin rosin core solde
(don't use acid core solder)

take out the screws holding in the pickguard (no need
to unscrew or take apart anything else). If you don't want your guitar
body scratched up then get an old towel or cloth and have it
ready to lay across the bottom of the body.
Now gently take out the pickguard - you might have to first
gently slide it out from under where the neck is and then
lift up from the front and lay it down gently sorta like
lifting up the hood of a car. Lay it down backwards against
the body (on top of the cloth). This way the ground wires (black)
and the hot wire (white) from the jack don't get pulled out.

If they do - don't worry - the white wire coming from the jack
cavity gets soldered back onto the volume pot tab and the
ground wires can get soldered to the back of the volume pot.

Ok - notice where the pickups are attached.
All you will need to do is to unsolder them (where they
attached to the 5 way switch is the hot wire and where
they attach to the back of the pot is ground wire)
If they are really stubborn you can snip them off using
some small wire clippers. You can always resolder the
new leads to your replacement pickups where they belong
and not have to really worry about any 'clippings' you might
have had to do. (this is a home job not some tech shop).

Now here's the thing that I really recommend.
While the pickguard is off and you are working on your pickups -
let's wire it so that BOTH the middle and bridge pickup will
work from the bottom tone pot (instead of the stock MIM Fender
way of not attaching the bridge pickup to a tone pot).

Ok - notice where the middle pickup wire (hot) is attached
to the 5 way switch. All you need to do is to take a small
spare piece of wire and run a jumper across to the next
terminal up (the next terminal should be vacant and not
wired to anything). This allows bridge and middle to
now be attached to the bottom tone pot.

Have a look at the Rio Grande pickups website and
look at the Strat wiring diagram - it shows how that
little jumper wire gets attached (don't look at the
usual 'stock' Strat wiring diagrams found all over because
these OEM and/or vintage wiring never shows the jumper wire
and just has the middle to the tone pot and the neck to the
upper tone pot and the bridge is not wired into tone.

Anyways - take the time to look under the hood and it is
a very straight forward job. It is not hard at all to do.
Just make sure when you pack it up and put the pickguard
back on that you don't crush or pull out any wires -
make sure the wires all fit nicely into the channels or
routing in your guitar without the pickguard smashing them down.

-- my 2 cents.


ooh yeah - Don reminded of another thing that is common -
Pickups from many makers such as DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan
will be out of phase with OEM Fender pickups if you try to
wire them using the same color wires.

So (for example) if the neck and middle were Fender 2 lead pups
(Fender is white=hot - to the 5 way switch and Black = ground to
the back of the volume pot) then for Dimarzio you would actually wire it
so that the Green (normally the ground) would then be the hot (soldered
to the appropriate tab on the 5 way switch) and the red would be the ground.
This way when you use the 'in between' pickup selection position, both
pickups (middle and bridge or middle and neck) will be 'in phase'.
Of course if you want that nasally whiney sound then sure - wire them
up out of phase.

ok - that's enough from me - lots more info is located all over the
web on this - but these are just a few important tips that I typed out.
.

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