I just scored an 83 Squier to use as a project guitar. Didn't work when I got it home.

Opened her up and took out the 5-way. Cleaned that up as best I could and a little tweaking to make sure all the contacts were actually touching and put it back in. I also modded the last tone pot and made it a blending pot. Now I've followed the wiring schematics for the blender pot wiring, but I'm only getting my neck and bridge pickups to work. Also, bottom is the neck pickup...backwards

The 5-way switch in the guitar seems to be backwards from all the diagrams I'm looking at. I flipped the switch around and connected it again as it is shown in the schematics I've found and now the switch seems to be functioning correctly, but still same issue.

Bad switch or something else? Any suggestions?

Have you tried taking a DCR measurement on each pickup?

You might have a dead one.

Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

I was going to do that last night, but first I decided to try one more time. I got everything working as it should. If I would have just thought for two seconds with my brain I would have fixed it sooner.

The switch had four posts on either side. I just soldered the pickups to the opposite side as the switch was sitting in the pick guard and bam. Who knew? Looking at the thing I can't see why it would have mattered but oh well. Unfortunately but yet fortunately I will have to replace the switch anyway. It's not contacting as it should and I have sound cutting in and out until I mess with it.

I'm just going to replace the pots and switch and be done with it. No point in fighting it. I got it as a project guitar so I'm looking forward to ripping it apart again to replace the electronics.

I will probably have to replace the bridge as well. The intonation is just not happening. Right now I have the 6th saddle practically off the adjustment screw and the intonation is still a bit flat. I'll have to research it a little.

Well I finally got everything sorted.

All in all I cleaned the fretboard, frets, jack plate, and pickup polls with Miracle Cloth. Same thing as Gorgomite, but a faction of the price. Just get the stuff with lemon oil. It's really makes your fretboard happy.

I fixed the pickup switchwith some TLC. When it came down to is I just needed to clean up the contact points. They seems fined until I realized there was a layer of tarnish over the whole switch and after 15 minutes of cleaning and tweaking all connections looked fine again.

I ended up yanking all the wiring and doing it over. It was the perfect project to teach myself how to properly solder a connection. The proper soldering iron makes a WORLD of a difference. haha I took the bottom tone pot out and made a blending pot. I was surprised at how simple that mod really was.

So, when I got her she was a mess and the guitar didn't even work when plugged in. Now she works, all positions on the pickup switch work and there's no scratching or loss of signal when changing. I had intonation problems but that was fixed easily by adjusting the one saddle. It was pushed up too close to the bridge pickup. Once moved it back I was able to adjust without any issues.

I took a non working guitar and redid the wiring and ran a full setup on it and made it sing again. I'm sure all this is basics for the majority, but this was my first time taking a guitar and fixing the issues with it. I can't wait now to play it out and see if I want to swap out pickups.

Please excuse the poor picture quality. The white body has a nice yellow hue to it from aging.

Mighty nice, and a very dramatic transformation. It's a sweet-lookin' Strat for sure!

As well, you've learned a thing or two about basic guitar maintenance and repair -- the best kind of project there is.

Rawk on!



Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Thank you. I'm very pleased with how things turned out. Now I have to rip my Strat Plus apart and solder those connections again. I replaced my pickups years and years ago, but did a real hack soldering job. I've never had issues with the guitar so far, but just would like to make it pretty for my own piece of mind.