Legacy Special neck pickup continually shorts out

[pjr114]

I've had this beautiful guitar for about a year and a half and I've had continual problems with the neck pickup. It shorts out or sometimes puts out a fraction of the output it should. I've had it rewired and res-soldered four times! by two different techs. Each time the neck works for a while and then goes dead after I pick up the guitar a few times. The last time was the most successful. It worked for a couple of months. The tech said he started from the beginning and reconnected everything. But I picked it up today and same thing. Could the problem be the pickup?

Anybody have a similar problem? Any suggestions? Thanks.

[Tooslowhand]

It could be. But I would think there is something wrong with the switch. Since the guitar has the PTB system, the pots and capacitors work on all the pickups. Have you tried wiggling the switch?

[pjr114]

You mean the five-way? It's been replaced once. Right now, wiggling doesn't do anything.

[Craig]

You mean the five-way? It's been replaced once. Right now, wiggling doesn't do anything.

You might check the wiring of the pickup selector switch since it had been replaced once, see this in our Gallery:
Album: Legacy Special Diagrams.

Also, check the DC-R of the pickups, they should be (approximately):
G&L Dual Blade and Power Blade Humbuckers 5.1K (Neck, Middle); 7.5K (Bridge)
See: Measuring Pickup DC-R.

Hope this helps.

[pjr114]

Thanks.

[Craig]

Thanks.

Please keep us informed on what you find and hopefully you will find and fix this problem.

[Tooslowhand]

II the issue is intermittent it seems unlikely to me that there is a broken magnet wire on the pickup. ff the switch and related wiring are OK, I suggest you select the bridge only pickup and play it. If there are no issues then you have isolated the issue to the neck pickup or wiring from it to the switch or ground. Look closely at the pickup and see if there is any metallic debris that has attached itself to the pickup and may cause an intermittent short. Remove if found. Examine the solder connection from the pickup to ground for a cold or intermittent joint. Re-flow the joint and check. Do the same with the connection at the switch and check. Examine and re-flow the solder joints at the pickup where the leads and magnet wire are soldered and check. If still not resolved disconnect the pickup from the switch and the switch from the pot. Connect the pickup directly to the pot temporarily and check. If still not resolved then I would consider that while unlikely, the pickup has a problem. If this still does not resolve the issue, it points to an issue with the pot or wiring, though theoretically this had already been ruled out when you played the bridge pickup without problem. Hope this helps.

[pjr114]

Thank you.

[pjr114]

It was a bad soldering point that my tech said was very hard to see. It looked OK, he said, but he re-soldered everything and all is right again for the fourth time! Will it last? He said the pickup is fine. What is causing this same exact problem to continue to crop up. Hope it holds.

[Tooslowhand]

Soldering is a bit of an art form. Sometimes solder joints that look fine aren't. I worked in the space business for 35 years and we used to send manufacturing techs to soldering school certified by NASA. These people made beautiful solder joints. Now that it's fixed you'll most likely never have another problem with it.

[pjr114]

I hope so. Thanks.