Jv telecaster wiring

KDS

finally got round to changing Old damaged bridge pu to some bare knuckle brownsugars. Took switchplate off to reveal a black wire which is connected to backshell of volume pot but isn't connected anywhere. Presumably this should be connected somewhere, I presume this is the return (I don't think this is technically gnd) at it's connected to lots of black wiring. It electrically connected to:
bridge PU
neck PU
bridge baseplate
neck cover
tonepot back plate
output socket

any ideas what it should connect to? I was wondering if it should connect to switch housing or the switch plate?

thanks

Roland

A picture would help. From your words I can’t understand what the cable is and isn’t connected to, or even whethe it’s the reason the old pickup doesn’t work.

KDS

KDS

Not sure that helps.....

ICBM

It might have been connected to the switch. The guitar has been completely rewired anyway, the cloth wire is not original. Given the number of excess ground connections it may have had a 4-way switch in at some point - in the original Tele wiring there should be only one black wire going to both the neck pickup and the bridge pickup - the bridge is grounded via the pickup.

Also the switch is crap, so it would be best to replace it with a proper CRL one while you're at it. If it was me I would rewire the whole thing to original, although I would leave the extra black wire between the two pot casings since that fixes a potential problem with stock Tele wiring. (And twist the yellow wire to the jack tightly around the black wires, since that reduces noise.)

KDS

Thanks, I'll look into rewire and new switch

KDS

Any recommendations, you mention crl

ICBM

KDS said:

Any recommendations, you mention crl

I wouldn't use anything else. Simply better - more robust, more reliable, and feel better in use - than any other switch. Not that cheap, but you'll only have to do it once.

KDS

@ICBM what about wiring, anything in particular you recommend? 

ICBM

The cloth wire is actually fine, just that there's too much of it .

Check what's been done under the pickups - on an original Tele the eyelet for the black wire is also connected to the cover or baseplate - since there's an extra wire for each, the chances are the neck pickup has had the cover fitted with a separate ground (necessary for a 4-way switch) and the bridge may have a ground wire running to under the bridgeplate (necessary if the pickup has been replaced with one with no baseplate).

The plastic-covered wires from the neck pickup should be the originals. The bridge pickup is not original anyway since it doesn't have the matching wire.

Funkfingers

ICBM said:

4-way switch

Ideally, the four-way switch Tele circuit requires a separate ground wire for the metal cover on the neck/Rhythm pickup.

The original Squier JV wiring employed the old YM-30 selector switch and the pre-1968 circuit. (Bridge/neck/muffled.)