Major Help Needed

[bomdelux]

Before I start ranting on about my problem, I'd like to explain I'm a real noob to this guitar modification stuff, so please bear with me.

Ok, I bought a set of fender tex-mex pickups to install into a squier stratocaster (affinity series) to make it sound decent. With the set of pickups came a schematic diagram explaining how to install them. I ignored this piece of paper, and wired them up how the previous pickups were wired. Needless to say, it didn't work. the pot that controls the bridge pick-up tone did not work. After some playing about inside it again, and replacing the pot and most of the wiring with higher grade wire, the pot still doesn't work...and to add insult to injury, the volume pot only works when you press down on it now.

Could anyone please tell me if I need to totally rewire it like the Fender Diagram says so, or if that shouldn't make a difference?

I'd just like some confirmation before tearing out all the wires and trying to rewire it again.

The volume pot, I presume, just has a loose connection and with a bit of resoldering and WD, should work fine...

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Adios

[Mickguard]

If all you did was replace the wires from the original pickups with the new pickups, then it should have worked as it did before.

I'm betting it's either: that you accidentally desoldered the capacitor on that tone pot, or at least it or one of its wires worked loose--inspect it real closely, you might find a break. Low-end guitars often have hastily done soldering.

Or: that one of the ground wires is touching where it shouldn't and is shorting things out. You have to be really careful about loose ends inside there since it's pretty cramped what with all those wires going every which way.

Probably in the case of the volume knob, the wire worked itself off when you screwed the pickguard down, so that's why you need to push on it to make contact.

At this point, since you've already panicked and tore things apart, you might as well strip it all down again and rewire things exactly according to the diagram.

There's a really good tutorial on soldering tips here: Soldering for Guitars --it's extremely helpful.

[bomdelux]

Thanks very much dude, I'll check it all out soon. Just need to be a bit patient....

Will the fact that the middle pick up is wound the other way effect how it needs to be wired, cuz it says that this is the case in the write up for them.