a comprehensive guide to changing pickup .. with pics

[Disclamer: ..1) now i wont take responability for any mess that you make! .. i dun care if i was the one who inspired you! .. so if anything goes wrong .. dun go runin to your mommy shouting that shahrukh made me do this and now my guitar is all messed up ... 2) .. if you really wanna go through and change your own pickup .. go through this post in detail ... and be sure that you can tackle all aspects .. 3) the pics are a bit shakky .. sorry for that .. but if you had been fasting for 15 days you wouldn't have done any better .... :P]

1) .. pic no.1 ... get a towel .. lay it flat on ground and put your guitar on that ..( this is to protect the finish from any rugged carpets) .. smell out a dirty sock and tie it around the neck (i you want to keep your existing strings... you'll know why .. later)
2) .. pic no.2 ... get a flat head screwdriver and take out the post screws holding the bridge .. be carefull here .. they have tendency to jam up .. when you dun want them to .. so take em out .. in turn .. do couple of turns of screw 1 then couple of turns of screw 2 ... and so on ..
3) .. pic no.3 now take out the bridge .. and the saddle and put the strings as far as possible from the guitar body .. (now you know why i used a sock .. smellier the better)

4) .. pic no.4 take out the four screws holding the pickup in place .. using a small precision philips screwdriver
5) .. pic no.5 .. after the pickup is out of its cavity .. unscrew the height adjustment screws till the pickup gets free of its bracket/ring ... there you go ..
6) .. pic no.6 .. turn the guitar over .. taking care that the lose pickup doesnt scratch your body finish .. and unscrew the control cavity plate ...

7) .. pic no.7 .. at this point i would like you to take out the volume pot, for the pickup you are about to change ..this will make things much easier .. now here shall i point out something? .. notice the little arrow in the pic? .. this is the where the finish has chipped off (and you can see the wood in its natural colour).. when i was getting my guitar made . the luthier asked me if i wanted his special colour thingy .. unlike the normal way of colouring the guitar .. when the wood itself is stained .. he kept the wood in natural colour .. he did one coat of clear lacquer . and then coloured the lacquer! .. then did another 5 or 6 coats .. to seal it off.. now the good thing about this is .. that whenever i feel like getting the colour of my gutiar changed .. i would take it to the luthier .. he will chip off the existing finish .. off will come the colour as well .. and then recolour it! .. i dunno why gibson people dont do this trick .. they just stain the wood .. so no colour changes for gibson owners .. unless they get the wood changed ..anyway ..back to buisness
8) .. pic no.8 .. de-solder the connection from the volume pot and pull the pickup wire .. it will come out without any problem (i havent shown the de-soldering cuz i needed to use both my hands and couldnt take pics of that process)
9) .. pic no.9 ..(do this if you want to keep the cover of your pickup and put it on the new one) de-solder the base of the pickup .. and nudge out the pickup .. there will be terrible mess... flakes of wax will pop-out ..so make sure your mommy isnt around ..and get the hoover ready ! ..(pic: cover and pickup side by side ..)

10 .. pic no. 10 ... aaaaah the new pickup!.. isnt it a beauty! .. my friend had it in his axe .. he went on to buy the zake wylde emg set so he sold this one off to me .. he says its custom made as well .. and to be honest .. it doesnt look like one .. but it si pretty .. and sounds fantastic! ..
11 .. pic no. 11 .. get the new pickup and stuff it inside the pickup cover .. get a candle and put as much wax in the gaps as possible .. there you go .. isnt it SHINY!!
12 .. pic no. 12 .. now to get the wire into the control cavity .. the most annoying part! .. make up a plastic lasso out of clothing tags . and lasso the wire .. thread it throught the routed cavity/tunnel for the wire and PULL!!!

13 .. pic no.13 .. with a bit of luck . the wire will come out on the other side .. in this case the bridge pickup cavity .. (i have taken out the bridge pickup as well ..) .. then again .. thread lasso through the other cavity/tunnel . and the wire will emerge into the control cavity ..
14 .. pic no. 14 .. get the ring/bracket on the new pickup ..remember .. the spring gets threaded on the screw before screw screws the pickup ..
15 .. pic no. 15 ... get all the stuff back in .. the pickups, the saddle, the bridge .. and screws ...

16 .. pic no. 16 .. solder the wires .. (again didnt take any pics .. firstly cuz none of my hands were free .. and secondly . i didnt wanted to mislead you by showing you MY guitar's wiring .. cuz its custom . and yours could be completely different from mine .. so read the manual that you get with your pickup .. and do wiring according to YOUR setup).. put the control cavity cover back on ..
17: .. pic no. 17.. mmmmmmmmmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

any question .. and suggestion .. ??

done especially for IGT .. do not copy and paste it on other forums/internet .. please.

and yeah any chance of getting it made sticky? mods?

Excellent thread, made it sticky. Reps for you!

w00t

great one

wow man .. that was some work .. tho i'll be afraid to do it myself on my first electric guitar

Originally Posted by nemo

wow man .. that was some work .. tho i'll be afraid to do it myself on my first electric guitar

buy a 3K Givson like me and experiment your heart out

@sharukh - is it possible to experiment that in other guitars as well....or is it solely for les pauls?

this is how you do it for les pauls .... i will post another thread with a how-to for fender/ibanez styled tremolo'd guitars ....

please post man....i want to chekc it out how to do it!......do we get seperate pickups for buying?

awesome thread man
reps comin ur way

@jekyll yar mera guitar to 9k ka hai .. bought only 3 - 4 months earlier : )
Got myself gear: guitar + processor + amp