Advice for broken pickup

Flooks

I am working on a Tele partscaster and when it came to wiring up the pickups I am getting no resistance reading on the neck pickup and it is making no sound through the circuit.

These are the Fender Vintage 64 set which I bought new (from a shop not directly from Fender) but it was some months ago, I am not sure if the shop would still take them back.

Does anyone know if Fender themselves would fix this, or else any UK pickup makers that would be good to send this to?

Flooks

Not that its particularly relevent, but here is the project!

Danny1969

Try redo'ing the solder joint where the pickup winding meets the wire 

Flooks

I am a bit worried about breaking the thin coil wires but I might give it a go.

If the soldering is the problem then should I get a resistance reading across the thin wires before they meet the solder points?

I tried to get a reading there but didn't get anything

Danny1969

The pickup winding has a coating on it to insulate it so you won't get a reading touching the outside of it  ... resoldering the joints won't break the wire. 

Flooks

Ah thanks, that makes sense. I will give it a go resoldering

Flooks

Thanks again for the suggestion Danny. I just heated up the solder points on the pickup and that was enough, its working fine now!

guitars4you

Ash at @OilCityPickups will help if the re-soldering doesn't work - Fender won't be interested

ICBM

This is a very common problem on modern Fender pickups - they don't apply enough heat. I think it's probably because they also make pickups with plastic bobbins, which can't be heated much before the bobbin starts to melt, so the workers are trained to apply the minimum possible amount until the joint looks OK... except that it quite often isn't, and although it works at first, a bit of oxidation gets in over time and it stops.

Voxman

If the pickup is faulty the store is responsible for replacing it as the retailer. Fender are the manufacturers so they too are responsible from a manufacturer's warranty perspective.  Try the store first as they should replace it.  Golden rule, and hopefully goes without saying, always be friendly and polite. If its a decent store you should have no problems.  Don't try and fix it yourself as that could invalidate Fenders warranty. 

ICBM

Voxman said:

If the pickup is faulty the store is responsible for replacing it as the retailer. Fender are the manufacturers so they too are responsible from a manufacturer's warranty perspective.  Try the store first as they should replace it.  Golden rule, and hopefully goes without saying, always be friendly and polite. If it’s a decent store you should have no problems.  Don't try and fix it yourself as that could invalidate Fenders warranty. 

In theory, but if that means returning the guitar to the shop by courier (and a second time, to get it back to you) vs a simple and easy repair yourself, I would always do the latter. If done correctly this repair is undetectable anyway, if it later develops some other serious fault and does need to go back under warranty.

thermionic

It’s a partscaster, only the pickups would be returned. Good result anyway, and the Vintage 64s are great Tele pickups!

Flooks

Cheers for the advice chaps. I managed to fix it and I'd say it is undetectable. It would have been a lot more faff to return to the shop