Help identifying and sorting Legacy pickups

[Serge]

I recently adopted a Legacy, sight unseen (how fast can you say "evilBay"?). Plugging it in, position 4 (bridge-mid) was hum-cancelling, while position 2 (neck-mid) was not

I had to have a look under the hood. I found that the baby was made in October 2008. I saw something that looked fishy in the wiring:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66942618@N03/6095767446

Pickups were:
- neck: a pickup with a G&L cover, no label, with a DC resistance of 7.1k; exposed poles attract the "South" end of the compass needle;
- mid: G&L cover, 6.6k DC resistance, a label showing RWRP and SSL-2 among other witing; exposed poles attract the "South" end of the compass needle;
- bridge: G&L cover, 6.6k DC resistance, a label showing SSL-2GL among other writing; exposed poles attract the "North" end of the compass needle.

The detail of the labels and overall look are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66942618@N03/6095226589

and here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/66942618@N03/6095751498

I tried rewiring differently, treating all black wires as "ground", and white wires as "signal". I also rearranged the pickups, with the "no-label" at the bridge, and the RWRP-labelled one in the neck position (thus putting the one with different polarity in the mid position). This time, I had hum-cancelling in position 2, but not in position 4!

My questions: what exactly are those pickups? are the two labelled ones Seymour Ducnans (as I suspect)? how about the "odd man out"? Finally, what should/could I do to have the guitar work as intended, with hum-cancelling in both positions 2 and 4? Should I get a Seymour Duncan (presumably an SSL-2)to complete the pair? How about polarity? Or could I get a pickup wzard to rework the "odd man out" If so, how exactly?

Thanks in advance for all your good help!

PS: this is my first post, never used flickr before, hope I am not breaking any rules or trying anybody's patience with this post.

[Philby]

Hi Serge,

It looks to me like you have 2 Seymour Duncan SSL-2 pickups and a standard Legacy pickup in the neck.

Unfortunately Seymour Duncan pickups are often wound to the opposite convention of normal pickups i.e. a black wire on a Seymour Duncan = a white wire on a Fender or other pickup. Though, as I understand it, this just affects the phase of the signal. The actual magnet polarity and the direction of the winding around the magnet (clockwise or anticlockwise) is what causes the hum cancellation.

It sounds like you need a standard SSL-2 neck pickup to complete the set and give you hum cancellation on the neck-mid setting.

In my experience the Seymours are more sturdily built anyway, though the standard G&L pickups do sound nice for a standard pickup.

[Serge]

Thanks for the quick reply, I think that's what I am gonna do, that is, buy an SSL-2 to complete the set.