Wiring Help

Horatio_Caine

Got myself in a little wiring tangle let's say and any advice on what I have cocked up on would be appreciated.

In the end I did decide to change the pickups on my Explorer to a certain set, using the 2 conductor braided wire.  I'm not the best on wiring but gave it a go, following the pictures I had taken of one of the SG's I had which had pretty much the same configuration, 1 volume, 1 tone, pickup selector and braided wire pickups.

After doing it all, predictably I have made some sort of error, most likely and hopefully small, but still a cock up is a cock up.  Basically the bridge pickup works fine, but when in the neck or using both I get no sound.  I have done a diagram of how it is and hopefully this will show the mistake I have made that I don't know of.



Any help appreciated here, feel free to take the picture and edit it.  If it is ok as it is then maybe I have a bad solder joint somewhere.

ICBM

If you get nothing in the both position as well as the neck, the problem is a short in the neck pickup wire. Check at the end of it that the braided shield is not touching the hot connection on the switch, and that there's no stray bit of wire or solder that could be contacting it either.

Is the braided cable cloth insulated or plastic insulated? If plastic, you could also have created a short by overheating the braid when soldering it, in which case you will have to cut the cable back a bit and have another go.

Horatio_Caine

Thanks for the help, the braided cable is cloth insulated.  The neck pickup cable is a bit tatty as well so there is most likely a short there, it looks like nothing is touching, although it looks a bit of a mess around the volume pot area.  Some more pictures are here to get a better idea now, chances are because there is loads of cable still I may just cut a portion off and start a fresh.

Horatio_Caine

Just an update, I've got it fixed, the short in the neck wire was the problem.  I decided to cut off the wire just before it reaches the volume pot so I have a completely clean bit to work from.  All resoldered, the neck and middle now work fine and sound good, humbucker sized P90's are nice and work well in the guitar.  Many thanks @ICBM for the help.