Help with Pickup Installation

[Chris Bauer]

I am unquestionably the least mechanically and electronically-minded person I know and have a LeGrande II SD10 that needs a new pickup.

1. If I were to try to swap the pickup out myself, is there anything I can mess up so badly that someone actually competent couldn't fix it easily?

2. Anyone here willing to talk me through the process with so-simple-even-I-can-understand-it language and perhaps at a pre-Kindergarten pace?

Any informed wisdom will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[Richard Sinkler]

You shouldn't screw anything up. Make sure you get the right type of pickup, wide or narrow mount. Wide mounts have the mounting screws (4 of them) on the sides of the pickup in the base plate. Narrow mounts have screws at each end.

Unsolder the pickup wires under the guitar. Take note of the wire colors and where they were soldered (a picture is worth a thousand words here).

Unscrew the mounting screws and remove the pickup.

Feed the new pickup wire through the body of the guitar and cut to length (leave a little extra if you can).

Screw the mounting screws into the guitar.

Solder the wires to where you removed the old wires, paying attention to the wire color. Most pickups I have seen have black and white wires.

Adjust the pickup height. I start with the spacing from the top of the pickup magnets to the bottom of the string using the thickness of 2 quarters.

[Chris Bauer]

Thanks. I <gulp> might give this a try.

[Larry Dering]

If you can't solder or don't have a soldering iron you will have trouble. It's not rocket science but the connection has to be done right and those wires are fragile and tiny. Watch some videos and decide if it's something you can do.

[Bob Hoffnar]

Make sure your replacement pickup fits in the cavity and is not to tall. It can get a little tricky with the height adjustment plate. (at least with the 805's on a leGrande III). Those little spacers can get away from you pretty easy. Try toothpicks to hold them in place. Pickup mounting and all that is not as standardized as you would hope.