Wiring problem?

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

Hi everyone I decided to hot rod a tele over the summer and i got finished with it a couple weeks ago and plugged it in and... nothing happened. I got some fender vintage noiseless pups and i got a wiring kit from stewmac.com and they both gave me wiring diagrams that were different from eachother so i've re wired it to both of them and neither is working for me. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to make it work. Any suggestions would be much appreciated! Thanks!

I put this up in the luthier forum also but I thought I'd get as many eyes as possible on it

 

[GIBSON67]

We need pics of the diagrams and what you've done so far...

Basic question, do you get a reading with your multimeter for each pickup?

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

Oh.. I've never done this before so I don't have a multimeter. Do I absolutely need one?

 

[Georgiatec]

This^^^^^ . Then follow everything to the output jack to make sure you've got continuity.

 

[Georgiatec]

Oh.. I've never done this before so I don't have a multimeter. Do I absolutely need one?

You have no idea the connections are good without one
Can you post a clear pic of the job so far?

 

[poeman33]

A multimeter will tell you if the pickups are bad, and also what, if any output you are getting from the jack. It's not mandatory, but can help find the cause without unsoldering each wire.
Pictures would help alot. Each company tends to have differnt colours for hot and ground. On the Fender, black is usually ground. But if you are getting no sound at all, it sounds like something isn't in the right spot somewhere along the chain. If you compare the wiring diagrams from Fender and Stewmac, where are the differences? Also, does the Stewmac switch look the same as the Fender diagram, or it it one of those ones with a circuit board?

The chances of both pickups being duds is pretty small...so it's probably just a wire in the wrong place cancelling the circuit. That is what you would find by checking the continuity. Without the multi-meter, you'll just have to troubleshoot the old fashioned way. One thing at a time.

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

This is what I have so far. It's wired to the fender diagram right now, I'm not sure where that actual paper went so I don't have a picture of it but the stewmac diagram is this



The difference is that the stewmac has two capacitors whereas the fender only has only one.

The wires are as follows

Black are grounds from pickups
Yellows are the other pickup wires
Silver are to the jack
Whites connect knobs and switch

I hope this helps haha

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

I just spent the last hour or so messing with with the wires and such. I read that I could test the pups by just wiring them directly to the jack and I did that with both and tapped the poles with a metal washer and got a noise in my amp so from that I concluded the pickups work. Then once I re wired the jack to the knobs I tapped all the metal pieces where the white wires connect and I got a sound in my amp. I even added the .001 capacitor to the volume knob and the connection seemed good. The only places I didn't get any sound is where the yellow wires from the pups are connected to the switch and black wires that are grounded to the volume pot and the .047 capacitor that is in between the volume and tone pots...I'm not sure what is going on here

 

[Ugly Duckling]

Hmm..
The wires on the switch doesn't connect the same way as on your schematic. It seems mirrored? I suppose the schematic shows the switch up side down the same way as your picture?

 

[DirtySteve]

That's what I was just noticing. It looks like the switch is wired wrong.

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

The switch I got is a mirror image of the one in the schematic if that makes sense. So instead of having the poles on the bottom farther to the left like the one in the diagram the top poles are farther to the left. That's kind of hard to explain haha but would that make a difference? Should I re wire it to fit the schematic more?

 

[DirtySteve]

I'm not familiar with many fender switches. I was just comparing the image to the diagram. All the Tele diagrams I find doing a search that have that type of switch show it wired like it is in your diagram. Then I opened my modern Tele to see how it's wired and it's the same as your diagram.

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

Oh my gosh it works!!! thank you all so much I feel like an idiot haha I shoulda just followed the diagram exactly, that's what they're for isn't it

Thanks again to everyone who helped me today, now to screw it back together, string it up and play!

 

[DirtySteve]

Awesome!

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

Soo... I strung it up and plugged it in and the neck pup sounds great but the bridge pup is really really quiet, how did this happen? Haha oh and the knobs are switched so the bottom is the volume and the top is the tone but that's something I can deal with. Any suggestions on the bridge pup volume problem?

 

[DirtySteve]

Are you still having the problem? I would suggest redoing it and following this diagram exactly...

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

My switch is a mirror image of that one so I think that's where I'm getting confused. I wire it one way and it doesn't make a sound and I wire it the other and the pots are switched. Im not sure how to wire the switch because it's opposite

 

[Dogs of Doom]

You have your switch on backwards...

Being backwards, it is not a mirror image, it needs to be rotated 180º...

Look at Steve's diagram. Look where the rotator part is. It's on the right. You have it on the left. If you spin it, you'll see why your wires are wrong...

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

I just switched it around and the lugs still don't line up with the ones in the diagram

 

[Fairgrounds_Luke]

So I got the switch and the pots to work just fine the only problem now it the bridge pickup problem. I've done everything I can think of to test it and fix it, I've adjusted the heights of both pups, wired them directly to the output jack and tested the volume. In every scenario the bridge pickup is quiet. I'm at a dead end, any suggestions on what to do?