Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

For newer Higains with threaded pole pieces this can be acheived quite easily.
All you'll need is a few tools:
regular #2 Phillips, a #1 Phillips, a couple Allen head wrenches (3/32) one straight, one "L" shape for tight pole pieces,
and a fine tip flat head to put the modified pole piece back in.



Take your pickguard off and remove pickups. Remove pickup rings. No need to unsolder the PU's from the wiring harness.
You just want to remove the pole pieces with a 3/32 Allen head wrench:



After removing a set of pole pieces, go to a bench vise and clamp the head of the screw right near
the end of the vise and cut head off with hack saw. Cut right at the head and don't miss up your pole piece threads.
The pole pieces are quite hard but will cut fast with a sharp hack saw. Like this:



I used a bench grinder for a second to smooth the cut before proceeding. Now I clamped the threads of the headless pole piece between 2 hard plastic doners
(My Mustang spark wire organizer clips) in the vise to protect the threads and cut straight down the center of my original cut about a 1/16th of and inch, so I can
use a fine 1/8" screw driver to screw pole piece back in the bobbin from below instead of from above.



Now the pole piece looks like this:



Now I'm screwing in the pole piece from below (NOTE these are adjustable now from below the pickup, to balance your string to string relationship for the given PU)
Pretty cool - And it works. I did several tests to verify this. If say your bass string, on your Neck pickup is too strong then just remove the pickup and unscrew the pole
piece a bit for that given string. I started with all pole pieces up flush to the Toaster cover and then dropped down pole pieces as necesary. Since the original pole piece tops
were above the original HiGain chrome frame you simply raise your modified Toaster top HiGain PU closer to the strings until you find your sweet spot then adjust from below to suit. After you've gone through this process - it's a set and forget deal. But you can always adjust at some later time.
Install pole pieces from the back now and install Toaster top cover:



Heres the neck pickup done:



So I did the bridge pickup and put her back together. Since I just finished a Vintage Tuner conversion from stock Schallers the guitar looks really vintage now.
I get the HiGain and ability to not only adjust height of pickup but adjust the pole pieces to suit the response of the individual strings. BUT I get the vintage look
What's it sound like? Awesome, just like before - which I was entirely happy with. Me buddy couldn't tell the difference. It certainly still sounds like a HiGain.

I think it was well worth it for me. I enjoyed the project and hope you guys got a kick out of it. I'm back and forth on the vintage knobs as I haven't really
found this particular model with the vintage knobs on them. They all seem to have the chrome top knobs since it's redesign of the rounded top body of 1964.

So here it is - a pretty much correct in appearance vintage 360 in JG ( actually a modded 07 360 JG)

Great thread again Kevin, I really like this kind of thing - and a list of tools as well !!!.

The 360 looks superb, really nice job.

Yeah brilliant thread Kevin I really enjoyed this. Your 360 looks gr8.

Sweet. Nothing beats a 360JG, and yours is now a cut above !

I really like it now because it has the look I want but still is the same guitar I bought it the first place.
Nothing lost but vintage look gained. The vintage case should be here soon and I just got m y Rickenbacker Black strap.
I'm still anxiously waiting for my T shirt and Calender.

Kevin,

THANK YOU for posting such a cool STEP BY STEP thread.

I printed it up for future reference.

Do you know if this would this work on a BASS High Gain, being it only has 4 lugs?

I'd love to convert the HG on my FL!

There is a post about that in the Rickenbackers Wanted section. "Allen Screws w/o mushroom heads for the newest Higains?"

If the polepieces aren't threaded you can drive them out carefully with a center punch and a grooved piece of wood. Then cut the heads off and drive them back in.
This method requires you to take out the pickup from the wiring harness so you are able to work on them.

Otherwise if the pole pieces have an Allen head mushroon type head you can just screw them out and replace with allen head studs or
use your originals doing the steps above. Cut head off, cut slot in the headless polepiece and screw them back in.

Great thread Kevin, I've been meaning to do this to my 330AFG,where did you get your toaster covers from?...

Hello Robert,
Teb told me to call Mike Parks at The Rickenbacker Page:

http://www.the-music-connection.com/ricpart.htm

Scroll down to Guitar Pickups 4th item down:
Part # 02086

I pretty sure he has them in stock.

Kevin, Thanks for the link........

Thanks, I thought it may be useful since I acheived the desired results.
I did think about using some allen head studs in place of original polepieces but wanted to retain as much of the original pickup as possible.
It worked out great and was easier than expected.

This pickup modification is interesting to me for two reasons. To begin, it allows for that traditional look with the edgy high gain sound. Moreover, it is also a comment that the high gain pickups are preferred by many on their Rickenbacker guitars.

For me, the modification allows for a uniform look while mixing toasters and high gains. My 350 Liverpool sounds best to me with hot toasters in the bridge and middle and a high gain at the neck. Others will prefer just the opposite. With my 24 fret model, the toaster at the neck just does not do it for me, but the high gain works nicely.

I have tired all combinations of humbucking, high gain and toasters in my 350 and have finally settled on a TTH arrangement for the neck, middle and bridge, respectively. My favourite setting is the bridge and neck which has a sparkle like no other non-Rickenbacker that I have heard.

What are the high pole pieces for if you can just cut them off. Why would Rick use them?

I love your work. What a great idea.

Thanks

Now if I could only change the headstock to the older smaller version.

Great stuff.