Telecaster pickup pushing in?

I know this isn’t a guitar forum, but I like you guys more :slight_smile:
I got a nice ugly telecaster a couple of weeks ago and just noticed that the silver neck pickup that doesn’t have dots on it will push in to the body and spring back. When I found out I turned off effects and tried it a couple times to see if it did anything. Does anyone know why it does that?

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Pic of guitar for reference (I don’t even know what model it is)

The pickup has foam or springs underneath so that you can raise or lower the pickup height. A useful feature!!
It is strange that you don’t see any screws to finalize that adjustment.

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How would I adjust it? Just push it in?

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Usually, the metal cover comes off and the screws are under it. But the covers usually have screws too. Not sure about that one.

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Usually the screws are on either end just like the pickup at the rear.

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The Telecaster neck pickup is a narrow coil one. The plate is cosmetic. The behaviour you showed in your video is normal.

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You need to take the pickguard off first. The spring is a good thing.

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There are two types of adjustable pickup mounting, screws that are anchored in the pickguard or bezel and are adjustable from outside the guitar (strat, humbuckers with bezels) and pickups where the adjustment screws are anchored in the body in the pickup cavity (under the pickguard in your teles case [think jazz bass pickups]). The pickguard adjusted screws have springs or soft tubing outside of the screw between the bottom of the pickguard and the frame of the pickup. This is what allows them to raise and lower when the screw is threaded further. The body mount pickups have compressed foam under the pickup frame which pushes against the body and allows the pickup height to change (lower with more compression) as the screw head is anchored on the pickup cover. The latter you can push down and compress the foam since the pickup covers are not threaded and can slide along the screw.

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@Glitch

I have a few teles and they all adjust from the pickguard with 2 screws but there are models like some Squiers that the pickup is attached to the to body and have to be adjusted by removing the pickguard. The springs or the rubber could have lost there resistance.

I found a website that might help you with that.

You can also get the parts from Amazon (if its available in your area). They are:

or

and

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no @howard, a Tele pickup is not made this way. the cover has small teeth that close the thing to the pickup itself.

speaking about the screws, there are two systems : one where the screws are directly mounted into the body, and another one (more recent) where the screws are monter through the pickguard, like on a Strat.

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Ahh interesting, so teles are different than the Gibson style covers. Probably for the best :slight_smile:

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