Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

[butterballblues]

Hello,

My father-in-law and I are trying to wire his project tele, however we're both at a loss. He's forgotten more than he ever knew, and I can only wish to know what he's forgotten. We have a fender single coil (lying around from a 99 USA tele) and a SD Hot Lead stack installed, and it looks like we wired it correctly (have a push/pull vol. and a 3 way stew-mac switch). In the bridge position, we get sound, push pull is good, but in the combined/neck position it is dead. No buzz, no nothing. Any ideas as to what we did wrong? We tried swapping the connections on the neck wires, triple checked all our wiring, made sure we were getting a solid connection, checked with the meter, plugged it in, and again, nada. Soon as we go to combined/neck it goes dead. Could it be the neck pickup is cooked? I figured even in combined we'd at least get the bridge pickup sound.

EDIT>>Could it be the switch? We move the switch and we're still showing a solid connection all around...

Thanks,

ButterBall

 

[Artie]

Re: Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

Here's something thats bit me a couple times . . . generally, you have one or two exposed ground wires. It might be the bare wire of the stack, or a ground wire that you've run yourself. The terminals of the volume and tone pots and the 3-way are all exposed. Its real easy to have one touch the other when you cram the control plate back into its cavity.

Fortunately, a Tele is the easiest guitar to check this on. Just remove the two screws and let the control plate hang out while you test it. If everything works, you know thats the problem.

 

[butterballblues]

Re: Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

I just read that when using a SD with a stock fender pickup that I need to swap the green and black wires. Could that be the issue? I'd check it now, but it's a a bit of a bonding project, so I'm waiting for his next visit (later this week).

Thanks again,

BB

 

[NevermindUs]

Re: Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

i think the green/black switch is just for phase issues... i just had this exact problem. for me it was because the lug that connects my neck pup to the 3 way was touching a piece of copper tape

 

[butterballblues]

Re: Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

Went over it again...it's gotta be something I'm missing--hopefully a separate set of eyes will find it later this week...

 

[MikeS]

Re: Newbie Wiring Help (dead neck?)

Do you get sound in the neck position? What is the push/pull for? Splitting of the lead stack maybe?

There are a lot of different ways to wire a switch, knowing how you did it is essential to diagnosing the problem. Either pass on a diagram or an actual picture of what you're looking at would be of help.