I didnt read the whole post. If they use metal springs, they cound be coming in contact with the pickup itself. Just like if you touch a scewdriver to a polepiece, it will make a pop. If this is the reason, you could get away with just swapping out the metal springs for the pickup height with the rubber tubing.

so here is the wrap up...

First of all, thanks to all for sharing your expertise.

I called Fender and they directed me to my local Sam Ash store for warranty repair. I called the store and spoke with the tech. I was surprised, as he actually was pretty knowledgeable and told me to come on in and he could take a look at it right away. Turns out he was pretty good! We took apart the strat and could see that the pickup adjuster screw basically just went into a threaded bushing on the plastic of the pickup. There really was no need for grounding this screw, at least theoretically. But I did know that empirically when I grounded that screw I lost the pop sound. So we used Martian's suggestion of putting some adhesive copper foil over the hole putting a small slit in it ,pushing the copper foil up into the hole and then this essentially grounded the screw to the pick guard. Turns out we needed two pieces of the foil to get a good contact. But it resolved the problem at least for now!

all-in all a nice result...but these gtrs....its always something!!

cheers

Byron

Like I had said, those screws had floating grounds. They were picking up stray and static electricity and loading up capacitance where the electricity was not able to discharge. Hence, the electronic 'pop' you were hearing/experiencing as by you touching them, your body became the ground allowing the discharge.

The bottom line: All's well that ends well.

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You dig?