52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

[WyyrdBryyngr]

The mini-humbucker in my tele has a braided shield for ground and another wire inside. I bought a 4 way switch and wired it up according to this, with the braided part of the neck pickup soldered to the bottom of the switch. It's working except for the horrible noise when touching the humbucker in some positions.

The bottom looks like:

I'm supposed to disconnect the ground from the cover, but the only 2 connection points I can see are really hard to remove. It's like they're welded points; my soldering iron has no effect on them, but I think wax inside starts melting when I try

Thanks for any help.

 

[AlexR]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

Yes. The 4 way requires the mechanical ground to be separate from the coil wires.
You need a very hot iron and maybe a solder sucker or braid to work on the joints there. Some have had luck mechanically breaking the join by using a flathead screwdriver. It does work, but it is more dangerous for the pickup if accidents happen.
If you can buy a 4 conductor version of the pickup that will be amazingly easier.

 

[WyyrdBryyngr]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

Ok thanks for the reply. So I have to break both those connections or just one? And then I can just solder a new ground wire to the outside of the case after that? Do I need to worry about overheating the pickup with the soldering iron? Seemed like I was liquefying some wax before.

 

[AlexR]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

No, you have to open up the pickup fully and separate the coil wire that is soldered to the braid and solder a separate hookup wire to it. This wire then needs to be fed through the hole in the baseplate that the braid is coming through.

 

[Mincer]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

Yes, this is a bigger operation than just separating the cover.

 

[WyyrdBryyngr]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

Well fook. Thanks guys.

 

[jeremy]

Re: 52 Reissue Hot Rod Tele 4 Way Switch Mod

i have a four way switch with a firebird pup in the neck. i left the fb pup as it is and separated the baseplate ground so there were hot and ground pup wires and a dedicated bridge plate ground. works great for me.