Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

[unkabonka]

I made a thread a few weeks ago asking for recommendations for a Strat Bridge Pickup, and most suggested a Little '59 for the Rock N Roll sounds I gave. My little '59 arrived today from Ebay and I'm planning on installing it this weekend.
A few questions...

1. Do I need to change the tone pot from 250k (I'm assuming my MIM has this?) to 500k? The guy at my guitar shop said this was necessary because the Little '59 is a humbucker. (Their quote to install 1 pickup was 50 bucks... ouch!) Currently, the bridge pup is not wired to a tone pot, something I intend to do.

2. Do I need to rearrange the stock MIM pickups with the seymour duncan or ground different wires because the SD is/may be out of phase with my stock pups? If so which color wire? (I have a red, white, black, green and what looks like a plain wire)

3. As far as the actual replacement, I should just wire the new SD wires into the ones that the old pup's went to, right? (With the exception of the tone pot, which I can wire the middle's tone pot to control the bridge and middle, correct? Again, which color wire would this be

Also, would I still be able to get a noise cancelling postion + quack in my 4 postion with the new pickup?

Thanks so much for helping a confused newbie, mg:

unkabonka

 

[jeremy]

Re: Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

4- if you want humcancelling youll need to split to the lil 59 in the #4 position, it can be done but need different wiring. look under the schematic section of the duncan website.

3- maybe. the green or black will be hot and go to the switch where the old hot wire was. the bare wire goes to ground (back of the volume pot) the red and white wires are connected and either insulated (no split) or connected to the 5 way to be grounded in pos #4

2- not really sure

1- i would say, try it first without the tone pot wired. if it sounds too bright then look at hooking up the tone pot. that will kill some of the high end. if you are going to hitch the tone pot up to both the middle pup and the neck pup and the 250k is too much for the bridge pup, id put the middle and neck on the same control and the bridge by itself on the 500k

 

[unkabonka]

Re: Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

Thanks Jeremy- I installed it today but with one problem. I'm pretty sure it is out of phase as now the little 59 is even more shrill and hums more than my stock bridge single coil I was replacing. (I did manage however to split the '59 correctly in the 4th position and retain quack) Now I've read that the out of phase issue can be easily fixed by changing the ground and hot wires. I grounded the green and bare wire to the volume pot, while the black went to the 5 way switch and the Red and White ones to the #4 postion using this schematic:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/schematics/hum_2sing_vol_2tone_-w-spl.html

Which wires do I switch exactly? Do the green and bare wire now goto the place of the black one? Do the red and white wires have anything to do with this? Help!! mg:

 

[Artie]

Re: Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

You would want to reverse only the black and green. So, you'll have black and bare going to ground. Green going to the switch. This will also reverse which coil of the 59 is active when split. If its no longer humcancelling in the #4 position, you'll also have to move the little ground connection that goes to the 5-way (split position) and connect it to the 59's green wire instead.

If it was me, I'd just reverse the ground and hot of the middle and neck pups. Thats actually easier and if you replace them with Duncans later, the 59 will be all set.

 

[larry_emder]

Re: Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

What i did when faced with this problem was wire up the neck pickup for the middle position and vice versa, so you can have the bridge and neck pickups together. This will make it in phase and humcancelling......and sounds good imo.

Just another option

 

[unkabonka]

Re: Installation + Wiring for Little '59 in Strat

Success! Thanks for the quick replies and help guys. I just decided to switch the green and black and that fixed it for me. I also wired the tone pot to the bridge pup, and that sounds great too. Larry, I had thought about wiring it that way, to get sort of a tele sound, but decided it would have made things a bit more complicated.

Thanks,

unkabonka