Help -- I connected my new pickups, but ...

[raygun85]

One more tip - make sure you have no cold solder joints. I've had a lot of folks call up with technical issues when installing new pickups or other electronic doodads and, as usual, 'they'd already tried EVERYTHING'. The usual culprit was a cold solder joint somewhere in the wiring.

[oipunkguy]

good point. and cold solder joints are common, even from the big names in guitar building. you can test this with a light tug of each wire and/or you can hit each point again with your gun.

[oipunkguy]

by the way you DON'T want to try the tug trick on the wiring coming from the pickups!!! you can short a pickup out this way.

[sleeperNY]

Both my Mosrite/Parts-right and my Hallmark 60 Custom are wired just like the pic's Danny posted and I have never had a problem with them.

Jim

[Tsunami Tom]

Thanks everybody. Terry and Matt, I understand what you're saying about how the outside lug on the tone control should not be grounded. That makes total sense, but, in most of the pictures that I have, it does seem to be grounded this way. As I mentioned in my original post, when I first wired the pickups, I didn't ground the outside lug on the tone control, but the guitar sounded very dull with no twang. So, my second attempt was when I included the outside lug on the tone control (that wire runs from grounding on the top of the tone pot through the outside lugs on both pots and ending by grounding to the top of the volume pot). When I did that, the pickups started sounding great, with lots of twang. I should mention that these pickups were made by E.F. Elliott. So, I was sure that they shouldn't be dull, which is what will happen if I remove the ground from the outside lug on the tone control without making any other changes. Now, I'm thinking that there's also something else amiss. I'll keep at it. Unfortunately, I'm unable to make any sense of the schematics that "Dubtrub" posted. Thanks for posting that, but, unfortunately, I don't know how to read schematics like that. It just confuses me even more.

Mel mentioned, besides the circuit itself, that I should make sure that there's no unintended shorts occurring. Last night, I re-soldered all of the connections. It's still cutting out, but now it's doing it in a slightly different way. Now, when I back off the volume control a little bit, it cuts out like before; however, when I continue backing off the volume, the volume comes back on towards the end and diminishes as it should when I continue backing off the volume control. Then, when I start with the volume control all the way off and slowly advance it, the volume control works perfectly all the way to full on! It is only when I diminish the volume that it cuts out. Very weird. Could I have messed up the pot with the heat from the soldering iron as I made all these changes that I've been doing?

I'm thinking that I need to study all of your responses until it makes better sense to me and then perhaps start all over. When I do that, I'm thinking that I should also use new pots. So, it might take me a while, but I'll let you know how it goes. This is my only guitar and it's a drag not having it working and needing to wait to get new pots, but at least this will be a learning experience. Thanks again to everybody. Hopefully, I can offer something someday to help somebody else!
Tom

[dubtrub]

Could I have messed up the pot with the heat from the soldering iron as I made all these changes that I've been doing?

That'd be my first guess. Done that a few times many moons ago when I was first learning to solder. You can spray it with Deoxit (which is about $15 a can) and see if that will clean up the innards, but for five bucks you can buy a new potentiometer.

If need be I can draw a layout view of the wiring and post it. Sounds like you have the wiring right if you fix the kaput pot.

[handbrake]

From your pictures, it appears you've got linear taper (B) pots. I'd get a new pair of audio taper (A) pots when you replace those. Cheers!

[oipunkguy]

agreed. change the pot would be my first guess as well.

[Mr. Bill]

Grounding the second outer leg of the tone pot will cause some slight loading on the pickup as the two pot resistances will be paralleled together. A long time ago we were discussing the pot values and this is where the larger 500k and 1 meg values were noted rather than the more common 250k and 300k pots.

I know that the photos show the way that the guitars were wired from the factory for some time, so there is no reason to unground the tone pot unless you want to experiment. What Dub sez about cleaning the pots with DeOxit is correct, if that doesn't fix it, then replacement is the only recourse.

I don't suppose that you have access to an ohm meter do you? If you do, read the resistance across the two pots. Then read the resistance across the output jack. Then turn the volume control down and watch the meter. What readings do you get as you turn down the control?

[Tsunami Tom]

... but for five bucks you can buy a new potentiometer.

Thanks Danny. Now, I need to find 2 pots that will fit. Any suggestions? I actually bought 2 500K pots from an electronics store, but the shafts were too thick. This Mosrite has shafts that are only 1/2 cm wide. That's 1/5 inch. All the pots that I find online either don't say how thick the shafts are or say "Required mounting hole diameter 5/16"." Of course, I could drill the holes to 5/16", but the knobs wouldn't fit.

This is my second MIJ Mosrite. The first one I had about 10 years ago. I had the pickups re-wound and I had somebody else put pickups back in, along with new pots. I kept the old pots and, over the weekend, I discovered that the knobs on this Mosrite do not fit the old pots from my previous Mosrite. The shafts are too wide. These knobs have extremely small openings. Like I said, the pots that I just removed have shafts that are 1/2 cm (1/5") wide. Any help pointing me to pots that will fit will be appreciated!

Thanks again!
Tom