Telecaster Four-Way Switch Mod

It took me very little time to go for the mod. I was hoping that wiring the pickups in series would give me the crunch sound that the humbuckers on my Les Paul give me. I ordered the Tritan four-way switch from Guitar Parts Resource. Warning to those who choose to buy this lever switch - the slot on the plate is not long enough. I had to use my Dremel tool to lengthen the slot so that the switch could go all the way to position one.

I used the wiring diagram from Rothstein Guitars. Both pickups normally have the negative leads grounded but one of the negative leads has to go to the switch. The neck pickup seems logical to me because the metal shield is grounded. The Rothstein mod instructs you to disconnect the wire on the shield going to the negative lead on the pickup and adding a wire to the shield to run to the back of the volume pot. The only problem I had wiring was starting it with the switch backwards. I had to study the wiring diagram and the switch to find the common pins. Other than that the diagram was easy to follow. I tested the wiring before I mounted the switch to the plate. Everything was fine.

I recommend plugging a cord into the output jack and testing the resistance while switching through the positions. The bridge pickup has a higher resistance than the neck. Wiring them in parallel will read less than half of the bridge pickup and more than half of the neck pickup. Wiring them in series will read the sum of both pickups.

I mounted the switch and put the guitar back together, plugged it into my amp and was disappointed with  positions one and two sounding the same. I did the resistance check and found position one measured what position two did (both pickups in parallel.) I lifted the plate and discovered the switch could not go all the way to position one. Fortunately I had a Dremel tool and with a little labor and a couple of broken wafer discs I got the switch to work. Looking closely at the picture above, the plate was nicked in the process. Consider it the start of my relicing project. :)

Fender also makes a four-way switch at over twice the price of the Tritan. I could not tell you if the switch or the slot is the problem but other than this problem the Tritan works fine. I have one more mod I want to implement. It requires a push-pull switch/potentiometer and a .001uF capacitor. This is my own design for adding a "cocked wah" sound usually done to Fender Esquires (Telecasters with just the bridge pickup.) Esquires have the same three-way switch that Telecasters do but it is used to modify the tone. I will post the results in the future.

Testing the mod, both pickups in series did not give me the humbucker crunch but did give me a stronger midrange sound. It does add to the versatility of the guitar and sitting at switch position three I can play rhythm and go to position four for leads. I'm not set up to provide a sound demo. I hope to in the future.