I’m assuming that as well.
The bass was BRAND NEW. It still had all the plastic on the pickups and electronics cavity cover. It was removed from the box to tune and photograph. So, doubtful. Possible, because I don’t know what happened to it before I got it, but not probable I don’t think.
Nothing.
So, I found this on the bassesbyleo.com site:
It’s supposed to be the wiring diagram for this model as drawn by Paul Gagon, who worked directly with Leo Fender on these instruments. But yeah, that does seem to be a lot of wiring.
It looks like the black and white coming in in the upper left are from the neck pickup. The yellow and black coming in from between the first and second pots are from the bridge pickup. The white and yellow from the pickups go to the middle post on the two volume pots. So that matches up, I suppose.
The red wire in the picture is shielded. It goes from pot to pot to pot, making no other connections except to the pots; the shielding is soldered to the pot casing, the shielded wire to the first post of each pot. The shielded wire is white, so I guess that matches the drawings.
The white wire in the drawing from the jack to the tone pot actually goes to the neck volume pot. But that should be OK, it’s still in line with the shielded white wire as it solders to the same post. The black wire in the drawing from the jack to the tone pot actually goes to where the black wires are at on the bridge volume pot, and from there a black wire goes out to the bridge. So in contrast to the drawing, that black wire is not connected to the tone pot, or the neck pickup pot.
And, in fucking with this, the black wire coming in from the bridge pickup broke off. I think that it was not soldered properly.
So I’ve got two issues that I can see:
- The bridge pickup ground was not soldered well and is now off, and…
- Where the drawing shows a black wire connecting all three pots, the bridge, and the jack, in reality it’s only connecting the jack, one pot, and the bridge.
I know I’ll have to fix the bridge pickup ground. Should I change the black wire going to the bridge to hit all three pots as shown in the drawing?
Sadly, I don’t. I’m going to have to pick one up now, though, to check my work. Plus, it’d be good to have. My son might have one, though, I’ll have to check with him.