Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I'm wondering whether a horseshoe could be a direct replacement for a high gain bridge pickup on a 4003, without having to drill new holes for the mounting surround. Does anyone know?

The screw holes line up perfectly. It can be a 'drop in' upgrade, with some soldering required, but I didn't go this route. I felt that the larger horseshoe pickup surround would bite into the paint and leave marks or dents in the surface of the paint so that it would show if I ever decided to revert back to the high gain pickup surround. I ended up using the high gain pickup surround with the horseshoe pickup, and fit together perfectly.

Thanks Greg. I'm thinking of this as a possible mod on a 4003/S8 somewhere down the road. Good to know it's possible without otherwise modifying the guitar.

Uh, I don't mean to embarrass but, no, they don't. How do I know? I've converted my 4003S to V63 pickup specs, plus the cap. The good news is, the surround hides all the screw holes.

Garry

I agree with Garry, I replaced the hi-gains in my lefty 4001S with horseshoe and toaster. The screw holes for the horseshoe's pickup surround DID NOT line up with those of the pickup surround of the original under-string hi-gain. But as Garry said, the new surround covers the original holes.

Oh yes it does! It's been a couple of years since I've done the upgrade, so I did forget to mention one esthetic and important detail: you have to flip the Vintage pickup surround around 180 degrees. As long as we're not talking about the V63 pickguard install as well, which will add some more holes, there's plenty of clearence there. There was a red 4003S8 on Elderly's (and later, the Rickenbacker Connection) that had this modification done in exactly this manner.

As I mentioned previously, using the Vintage pickup surround at all will probably mar your finish, anyway, so if you don't care about that, you might as well drill the extra holes and mount it correctly, as Garry suggests.

I think if I were to add the horseshoe, I might do as Greg suggested with using the modern surround. Thanks for the info folks!

When did they stop using he big surround for the horseshoe pu? The reason I'm asking is there's a '68 4001 that has the horseshoe's but the surround looks like a newer 4003 that has the cutouts. The pickup also looks to have screws for pole pieces rather than large magnets, is that right? I haven't seen too many early ones to compare with.

my '68 came with the modern surround on the horseshoe pickup .... and it came with screw pole pieces instead of magnets like the reissue horseshoe ...

The reissue horseshoe and toasters have bigger magnets and are hotter than their '60's counterparts ...

That's what I thought, after I posted I found some photos of the later horseshoe pu's. Thanks for the info.