thank you for this video. . when dealing with the telecaster, I found it easier to file the fatter, lower part of the metal switch tab then trying to file the slot in the metal control plate.
thanks john, 👍 i`ve just fitted a 4way switch on my tele, and found this out also, fortunately i managed to mod the offending parts and hey presto....😁works fine!
Holy cow...the other day I noticed that my 4-way Tele would not always engage the bridge....I thought it was a looseness in the switch...NOPE...it was the exact problem you cited. Took a file to the neck of the switch to cut out an indentation so that the switch could travel all the way over....5 min...DONE! THANKS!!
Such a great explanation John, really appreciate it, I changed my Fender Tele pickups to Seyomour duncan quarter pound and your video explained exactly what i needed to know to have the neck seymour duncan pickup with the three 3 cables required to use the special tone knob with the 3rd cable required from neck, thanks a lot!!!
You make a great point but did not mention that the pot holes on the cheaper plates will not be big enough to fit a normal sized CTS pot. So the trade of is using cheaper pots. Seems to be a lose lose situation.
I'm having an issue with my push-pull switch. I use a push pull cuz in the Philippines, the 4-way switch is P1000 more than getting a DPDT push-pull potentiometer. I dunno why I got it all wired up but my bridge won't make a sound in the series setting even though it works perfectly on its own. What gives?
Bro, this video is super helpful! I bought a 4 way and had this problem...I kept going back and check different wiring diagrams. I used my 3 way instead. I'm about to put my dremel to work and widen that slot. You've restored my hope to having a more versatile tele! Thank you, bro!!
You can flip the PHASE of a pickup, by simply reversing the wires. Positive becomes negative / negative becomes positive. However - if the cover "ground" is piggybacked through the negative with that jumper - you need to snip that and make a new dedicated cover ground wire. That said, that doesn't change the POLARITY of the pickup (magnets North Up vs. South Up). There's no way to change that. So - your mileage may vary on buzzing or noise. This is why a lot of Telecaster "sets" have a RWRP (Reverse Wound, Reverse Polarity) neck pickup - so they're hum cancelling in the mixed position.
I was just trying to find how to ground my Squire Tele neck pick-up that has normal switching, and now am confused with all the talk about series and parallel etc. I'll have to look further for instructions (I'm not an "electrical" person. Thanks.
I watched your video quite awhile ago when i considered installing the 4 way mod and recalled the throw length issue when I demoed after install as I was like” the middle position sounds identical to the bridge position “ . Then I pushed a little more forward to the bridge and it changed
I discovered this issue last week on my 4-way...then saw this vid. Five min ago I filed a small notch on the neck of the switch so that it could travel just a bit further and it fixed the problem. Now my bridge pup engages easily every time. This guy's a genius. LOL.
I put an Oak Grigsby 4 way switch in a 50’s MIM Tele and it worked fine. I tried the same switch in a Peavey Reactor with a twin blade neck pickup and it never worked right. Put in a 3 way switch and it works fine.
Thanks for the info, did not know that. Although I have another issue. Installed a 4way switch, did the neck pu ground switch to the cover, wired all up correctly, twice, and all I get is the neck pu on all four positions. I just can’t figure out why?! Tried with 2 different switches and always the same issue.
Well, looks like a bad pickup, in the end I disassembled the guitar, tested everything and who would have thought, the Bareknucke Piledriver bridge pu does not show any Ohms, this really put the cherry on top of a weekend build fail.
I found this video because I have a switch cap that annoyingly keeps popping off my modded telecaster; it hasn’t occurred that the efficacy of the switch might be affected by this design, too. Thanks a lot!
I came to this video with a little bit of hope. I have a pre-wired harness and two Seymour humbuckers. Followed the diagram. Watched the video. Took the harness out of the plate to see if the plate was the issue. Still hums. I’ve never had issues doing pickup mods in the past. The 4way mod on a MIM tele has been an unfortunate adventure. I would not recommend it.
Well that was interesting! The average pickup swapper would probably not look for that. Thank you! .......Fast forward two weeks, just installed a 4 way switch into a Tele, everything looked right and could not figure out what was wrong. I started searching the internet and this video came up again....sure enough, that WAS the problem. And the whole switch plate came pre wired from a name brand....and THEY got this wrong. Pretty unbelievable.
The telecaster neck pickup has three metal "tabs" - one of which is probably soldered to the pickup negative in some way, as shown in this video - for the purpose of grounding it. To remove the cover, (after disconnecting that middle tab from the pickup negative as shown in this video) - simply bend the tabs up and pull it off. You may find that it feels like it's still stuck on there - that's because they're typically "wax potted", meaning - the whole pickup was dunked in hot wax during manufacturing. This helps reduce microphonic squeal. The cover will pop off - it just needs a bit of force to break itself loose from the wax. Can't you accidentally break the teeny little winding wire if you just force it off? YES! If it doesn't come off easily after bending the tabs up, heat it up with a hair dryer or a heat gun to soften the wax if needed. If using a heat gun, pay attention to your heat setting, and any "plastic" elements. If your pickup has vintage style cotton-covered wires, you can go hotter than if it's got plastic wires.
You certainly CAN do that - yes. However, most if not all circuit diagrams available online will show the Neck as the one that is getting it's phase reversed, or being used as the "switched" pickup in a Series/Parallel configuration - so, I showed the neck pickup - so everything matches up with what most people will be doing, and the circuit diagrams they'll likely be using. I have done circuits where I flipped phase on a Tele Bridge, or used the neck as the "starting" pickup in a Series/Parallel circuit (meaning the Bridge negative would be the one running through the Series/Parallel "switch" - rather than the Neck). In fact, there are times where you'd need to do that - such as in a H+S situation with a Tele bridge pickup and a PAF neck with a braided/shielded lead - since that can't be cover-ground-isolated, or phase-reversed. The concept is the same for the bridge - disconnect the grounding jumper from the pickup negative to the copper plate, then solder a new, dedicated ground wire to the copper plate. Is it necessarily "easier"? No - not really. Actually, your soldering iron needs to be able to get REALLY hot to be able to get a proper connection to the thicker copper plate. If you're doing a mod using a commonly available diagram found online, then 99 times out of 100, you'll be flipping phase on the neck, or series-switching from the neck. As such, you'll be isolating the cover ground on the neck. You CAN however, do it to either one - depending on your circuit requirements.
To any of the three "metal tabs" that hold the cover on. Key however, is that attaching the 3rd wire is step 2. Step 1, is removing the (current) jumper connecting the middle metal tab to the pickup negative. This is the part that allows you to actually do whatever the mod is - phase reversal, series/parallel switching, whatever. Performing Step 2 and attaching a 3rd wire back to the cover (which can go to any of the three metal tabs), is just to ground the cover to eliminate buzz.
Reverb managed to lose a bunch of my messages. I have responded to everything I can currently see. If in doubt - feel free to reply to it to bubble it up to the top of my inbox.
