NBD - but I'm sad.... (pickup help)

tbm

Got a great deal on a "new" Jazz bass. It seems to have been the shops demo bass as it had the Fender stickers on, case candy untouched, hang tags etc, not a mark on it, but's its from 2011. 

Anyway, the bridge pup is making some noise, but the signal is barely audible. Neck pup is perfect.

I've checked the pots, all seems to be in order there, so I'm going to need to pull the pickup out. My question is, what should I be looking for on the pickup itself? It's had very little use, so I doubt very much a rewind is needed, but I could be wrong. Judging by how discoloured the scratchily was when I took the plastic off, if could have been hanging in the window of the shop for years. Can extreme heat (the shop was in Italy) demagnetise pups? Will checking the pup resistance tell me anything?

Thanks!

Funkfingers

Which exact model have you bought?

Some variants have pickups with plastic bobbins. The solder joints on these are notorious for failing prematurely.

The barely audible output from your bridge position pickup would make sense if;
EITHER its ground connection is weak
OR the output conductor is shorting against the bridge ground.

Some vintage-correct Jazz Bass replicas have a brass grounding strip running from under the bridge, into the pickup cavity. Under some circumstances, this can short out the signal. Normally, that would short out both pickups.

tbm

Hi @Funkfingers ;

It’s an American Standard from 2011. Thanks for the suggestions. Will check those things. 

Funkfingers

I had plastic bobbin Am Std pickups in a 2012 FSR hand stained Jazz Bass … but not for long!

When you inspect the solder joints for the pickup's two output conductor wires, try to take a DC Resistance meter reading.

If the solder joints look healthy but you can not get a reading, it is possible that the coil is shorted or broken.

That would be all the excuse I need to change to new pickups.

OilCityPickups

The plastic bobbin pickups (blurgggggh) as has been said are notorious for the solder joints failing. As the eyelets are mounted in thermoplastic (nice one Fender) it's a VERY delicate job to re solder them without melting the bobbin around the eyelet. ^)w soldering iron applied very quickly - don't use a small iron or you risk too much thermal transfer. 
This will not be a magnetism issue. 
As @Funkfingers says, if you can, take a DC resistance reading.  

tbm

Its not to pickup chaps. it seems to be the pot. thankfully!

Funkfingers

In that case, consider buying a push/pull pot. This would enable series/parallel interconnection of the pickups or a capacitor value selector for the tone control.

Funkfingers

tbm said:

Judging by how discoloured the scratchplate was when I took the plastic off, if could have been hanging in the window of the shop for years.

I have a vibrato cavity cover plate, taken from a Nineties MIM Standard Stratocaster, to which the previous owner had attached the circular "fitted with Fender Strings" sticker from the scratchplate film. Even now, more than twenty years after I removed the sticker, it is still just possible to make out its ghostly outline on the Parchment plastic. 

FWIIW, I have my original 2012 Am Std black/white/black 'plate in as new condition. It compliments some body colours but made the "mahogany" stain of my bass look like diarrhoea.