Bass VI has more of a Mustang/Jazzmaster trem, yeah? No hole through the back of the bass? I don’t think the Strat-style tremolo block would work here.
Yes correct. I wonder how you lock this style. Will need to research.
Would I be correct in guessing your Bass VI is a Squier? It appears that the trems on these don’t have the locking button:
The Fender version has it:
This is apparently a drop-in replacement.
And here is a really good write-up on how this trem lock works.
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I found a guy who makes a hard tail plate for the Bass VI, so if mine ever arrives I will be taking the Trem out. Made to fit bass strings easily too
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maybe you could just fit a piece of wood inside, between the fixed and the moving plates, in place of the lock that @fennario showed on his second link ? seems easy
I (stupidly) replaced the term already with a high end one that doesn’t lock. However, I have a machinist friend and an idea from @fennario’s post to make it one.
Thanks!
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After 20+ years, I am once again in possession of my very first guitar. An 1983 Kramer! Man, I spent a lot of hours trying to learn Metallica songs with this beast. It certainly has lived a hard life while I’ve been away but I’m ready to get it fixed up and shredding again!
Also, the serial number is my birthday!!! Like what?? I didn’t remember that fact what-so-ever!
I’ve been documenting the fix-up process so I hope to share more soon!
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Now that’s a wild axe. Maybe I should spell it “Wyld”. How awesome.
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When I turn the tone knob all the way down it turns off the output. That’s weird, right?
I opened up the access panel and it’s a cort 500kΩ pot. I pulled up an hh 5 way switch wiring diagram and nothing is so obviously wrong I could see it without cutting cable ties and tracing individual wires.
I think I’m just going to leave the tone knob turned all the way up and not worry about it, but this is a good candidate for a project instrument 
It’s not normal. You must have a leg of the tone pot connected to ground where it shouldn’t.
Two legs should be connected, one to the capacitor and another one to the output of the switch (or one leg of the volume pot). Like this :
Or one leg to the ground and the other one to the capacitor which is connected to the switch output (or the volume knob) :
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Thanks. My memory is the tone pot is wired the top way, but there were wires stripped back pretty far and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a short to ground from wires touching. I think I’ll probably electrical tape exposed wires and see if that fixes it first since it’s pretty easy. If that doesn’t fix it I’ll decide whether I want to just not worry about it since I only plan to bedroom mess around with this guitar. I have a multimeter and soldering iron/station and everything that I’d need to troubleshoot and de-solder and redo the connections, but I have a lot of other projects going on too.
the first step would be to measure with your multimeter which leg of the tone pot is grounded. after that you would be able to easilly locate the issue.
I think it sounds like there probably is a short to ground and the tone pot is acting as a voltage divider like the volume pot.
It’s also interesting to me because I have wired most things like the top but the bottom wiring makes more sense to me, despite doing fundamentally the same thing.
it’s the same, yes 
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Yeah all it does is reverse the order of the resistor and cap on the path to ground, which doesn’t matter from a filter perspective.
it’s just an economy of a wire, somewhat
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Actually I prefer the first wiring (with the added wire) because it makes it easier to change the capacitor if needed. But it’s a very small detail and personnal preference (and habbit).
from a practical perspective it’s probably better too as otherwise you have bare cap leads there in danger of grounding against something. I guess you could shrinktube them.