Making The 4001/4003 Neck Pickup Fully Height Adjustable

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Thu Oct 03, 2002 3:45 am

Sometimes you do need to lower or raise the neck pickup on your 4001/4003. This can be done by substituting coil springs for the black rubber grommets fitted between the pickup casing and the pickguard and by routing four shallow, and I do mean shallow, cavities in the underside of the pickguard where the four corner screws on the pickup abut against the pickguard. Each cavity should only be deep and wide enough to accomodate most of the screw head. I've performed this small modification to all my Rick basses and it has proven quite useful. Try it.

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Sun Dec 01, 2002 4:01 am

Another way to make the neck pickup fully adjustable is to replace the non-adjustable
'button' polepieces with suitably sized screws. Sounds impossible? Not at all. I did this modification to both pickups on a friend's 1989 360 guitar five years ago, and yesterday I decided to do the same to the neck pickup on my 1980 Burgundyglo 4001. Anyone feeling adventurous?

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Sun Dec 01, 2002 1:09 pm

The 1960's 4001's had a spring instead of a grommet and the early 70's high gain pickups had screws instead of button tops.

So by doing these mods you are making it more vintage

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Mon Dec 02, 2002 12:21 am

I know for sure that the early high gain pickup for the 4001 BRIDGE position did have screws for polepieces, but the neck one? I also know there was a short-lived transitional pickup (installed on six-string guitars only? Correct me if I'm wrong) which looked like a 'button' top pickup without the 'buttons'. Are you referring to that particular version?

jwr2 · Post by **jwr2** » Mon Dec 02, 2002 12:35 pm

I think you are right ...

Aren't the 4 and 6 string pickups basically the same except for the number of pole pieces drilled into the magnet?

rickcrazy · Post by **rickcrazy** » Tue Dec 03, 2002 12:27 am

Yes, they are. Polepieces are not drilled into the magnet, they sit on top of it. On the new style high-gain pickups, polepieces can be removed causing no damage to the pickup, but on the old style ones the bobbin is held together by the polepieces, which is why I asked 'Anyone feeling adventurous?'. I would like to know if any of you has ever attempted to do (or contemplated doing) this modification. Anyone?