Replacing Telecaster Pickups – One for One

In this video I have focused on taking a Telecaster, in this case a Squier Classic Vibe ‘50s Telecaster and replaced the stock pickups with a set of Fender Pure Vintage 51 pickups.

It is almost impossible to do this project with your strings on the guitar. I remove mine and then set to removing the screws from the bridge, pickguard, and control panel.

The bridge in this video is a vintage style bridge with four screws holding it in place. It is possible your bridge is different and has a different screw pattern or quantity of screws depending upon the type of bridge in your guitar.

Sometimes there is a ground wire under the bridge. You need to leave this in place. Do not remove or desolder it. The purpose of this wire is to ground the electronics to the string pathway so when you touch the guitar you become part of the ground and as a result the electronic humming noise should stop.

The first thing I do if I am working on a wiring harness is I pull my phone out and take a few pictures of the wiring harness before I do anything to it. This way I can use this as a guided to come back to if needed.

If you trace the wires from the pickups to the back of the switch on the control panel you should be able to tell which is from the bridge and which is from the neck pickups. In this case the yellow wire is from the bridge and the white wire is from the neck.

I desolder the two wires going to the pickup selector switch.

Next, in the video I am trying to determine which of the black wires coming from the bridge area is the pickup ground. I lightly pull on the pickup ground and then watch at the panel to see which wire moves.

Now I desolder both of the pickup ground wires from the back of the volume pot. Now I am able to pull the bridge and pickguard away from the guitar body so I can work on them.

The next step is easy. I remove and replace the two pickups that are being held in place by screws on the pickguard and bridge plate. Do not be surprised if the screws on the pickups that were already in your guitar do not fit the new pickups. I have found even from Fender they do not have a consistent or uniform size of screws.

The good rule of thumb is to use the new screws and rubber tubing that came with the pickups because you are sure they will fit.

The rubber tubing is used like a spring. When it is installed on the screws and the pickup is installed like a spring it places pressure against the pickup and what surface it is mounted to (pickguard or bridge plate).

Next, I feed the wiring back through the guitar and into the control panel. A few comments here. It is possible that your guitar body makes you feed the wiring from the neck through the bridge cavity and then into the control cavity. Mine allows me to feed the wiring directly from the neck routing to the control cavity. Both designs are common.

Also, if your pickup wiring is the same coloring meaning as an example the hot leads are both white and the grounds are both black you will need to mark the hot leads in the control cavity, so you know which came from the neck and which came from the bridge. To be honest this is only necessary is your neck wiring is routed through the bridge cavity and then to the control cavity.

If at this point you cannot remember where on the switch you should solder the neck hot and the bridge hot – this is where the photos you took earlier come into play.

I have put a diagram on the screen that shows the two common types of 3-way switches you are likely to run into and the most common wiring patterns.

Solder both of the hot wires to the back of the 3-way switch. Then solder the two ground black wires to the back of the volume pot.

Now before I button everything up by screwing in all of the screws, I test my work.

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Now after you reinstall of the screws and restring your guitar you need to perform one last step and that is measuring and adjusting pickup height. This is the distance between the top of the pickup and the bottom of the strings.

The distance between the telecaster pickup and string on the bass side is more than on the treble side. The measurements I am giving you are what I use and are only a starting point.

On the bass side I set the distance between the bottom of my low e string and the top of the pickup or pole of the pickup at 1/8”.

For the distance between the bottom of my high e and the top of the pickup I go anywhere from 1/16” to 3/32”.

There are so many variables in adjusting pickup height. Playing style, string gauge, strength of the magnets in your pickups, etc. At the end of the day use the measurements I provided and then use your ears to tweak.