I need serious help with this...

damion61583

New member
Okay. Here's my deal. I'm putting new pickups into my buddies guitar for him because I put a new one into his Ibanez. Well, that was easy enough. Now I've gotta put them into a Les Paul. Here are my issues:

1. The old pickups have one shielded wire coming out of the back that splits into 2 wires, a blue and white. One goes to the top of the pot, the other to the side.
a. The new neck pickup is a 59 model humbucker. It has a single wire
shielded with metel braiding, then normal shielding, then a fiber, then wire. Not two wires. How do I do this? Does it just go to the top of the neck volume pot and that's it?
b. The new bridge pickup is a JB model humbucker. It has 5 wires. Green-Red-White-Black-Bare. Now, I have to take this down to 2 wires or some other weird combination. I'm thinking Green-Bare get soldered together and goes to the back (top??) of the volume pot, red-white get soldered together and insulated, and black goes to the side of the volume pot. I can't say as that I'm a hundred percent sure because it shows that as the schematic for the neck pickup position and I don't feel like screwing up a guitar today.

If you guys could help me out it would be great. Let me know if I'm right, wrong, or what direction I need to go in to make these babies work!
 
Re: I need serious help with this...

Ok, assuming regular 3 way LP switch:
1. a the white wire goes to the pots so I'm going to assume it's hot- If so, the single wire of the 59 connects there- The braiding and shieldign go together to the other wire which should be the ground. (Very possible I have + and - exactly backwards as I haven't wired an LP type in over 10 years).

2. on the JB you're very close- Red and white are combined and taped off (don't hook to anything- Black is your hot wire- Green is ground.

Hope this helps!
 
Re: I need serious help with this...

Okay, I owe some clarification on the 59.

It's one wire. Period. The rest is just insulation. No white wire.

Heres the layers:
1. Metal braiding.
2. Black cloth insulation.
3. White fiber insulation.
4. The actual wire itself.

That's what's confusing me. Doesn't there have to be a hot and a ground somewhere on there? But how could you have that if there is only one wire internally?
 
Re: I need serious help with this...

Take a look at this pic. The braided part gets soldered to the back of the pot. Leave enough slack so you can solder the black wire that's covered by the metal braid to the lug on the volume pot. Hope this helps.

Good luck
 
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Re: I need serious help with this...

Big thank you to everyone who offered assistance. She's cocked, locked, and ready to rock now! Sounds fantastic! But could ya expect less from a pair of seymour's? :bigthumb:
 
Re: I need serious help with this...

Sounds like fun- Play something by Rush for me as I don't have a guitar at hand:)
 
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