1981 F-100 - new pickup day! Need help wiring

Fri Aug 30, 2013 2:25 pm

I'm finally going to try different pick-ups in my F-100 Series II, starting with the bridge pickup.
I figured I'd start low cost, and am going with a GFS (Guitar Fetish) Overwound Mini Humbucker.

Question is, how to wire it up? The GFS comes with 5 wires, the red and white "usually" wound together and left alone unless splitting/phasing I guess. Shield and black presumed to be ground, and Green as "+". They also say: "GFS Humbuckers may also be wired using Seymour Duncan wiring code".

In looking at the F100 wiring diagram, it looks like yellow = ground, but then I see a "green wire from bridge" that looks grounded too...

So, I guess what I'm looking to find out is: if the F100 pickup has yellow, green, black and white, how do those match up with the GFS colors red, white, black, green (and shield).

While I'm on the topic: is there a way to swap out the phase switch to make it do split coil?

Any help?

Re: 1981 F-100 - new pickup day! Need help wiring

Wed Sep 04, 2013 4:51 pm

No replies... but I have an update:

I began the process of installing the mini-humbucker in the bridge, but realized right away that it wouldn't satisfy. It sounded weak and surprisingly unresponsive compared to online sounds I'd sampled of that pickup. So, I tried bypassing the F100 circuitry, wiring direct to output, and BOOM the mini-humbucker came alive.

This led me to try wiring the original F100 pickups direct to output, and wow, they came alive too! As unique as the F100 wiring is, I'm thinking all the caps and switches are muffling the open quality of the pickups.

So: I've removed the original wiring harness and am going to install a dual humbuck/LP style harness to have a totally new sound for awhile. I'll start with the .047 caps, and see how they do, but have a couple of .022 to try later.

Re: 1981 F-100 - new pickup day! Need help wiring

Wed Sep 04, 2013 5:11 pm

Have you looked up the G-200 mod? I haven't heard it myself, but folks who have tried it swear by it. I'm sure there are schematics or a description somewhere around this site.

Ken