Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi !
I just received a new but shortly preowned beautiful 340 MB. When I opened the case - there it still was - the newish RIC smell everybody is talking about
But I have two questions on this340 :
It has the adjustable pole piece High Gains. I tried to lift the poles on the bass side with an allen key, but as they wouldn't move easily I left it alone this time. May I possibly damage the pickup by turning the allen too hard or is it normally that tight ? Any advices ? And secondly it has a different wiring than the two pickup Ricks, nice sounds, but I haven't found out yet which knob is doing what to which pickup. And is anybody out there with an Accent to sell ? Will swap with a B5 !
Thanks for help !

Congrats on the new 340. Post some pics if you get a chance. The pole screws are threaded into the plastic bobbin. I would think that they should move easily. Be careful not to strip them out. The neck and middle pickup are wired together in parallel.

The threaded pole pieces are very tight. My experience with them led me to believe that they are molded with small holes and the threading is done by the allen bolt. I used a power allen driver to remove and reinstall them.

Dwight's correct--and his method for removing the poles should work fine. If you don't trust yourself with power tools, a T-handled Allen wrench will help make the job easier.

Thanks everybody for your input! It was just my fear to damage something, the poles were just srewed in very tight, now they move very easily, it seems that they had not been turned before. It's a wonderful guitar, I'll post some pics when I'm back from a fortnight vacation The adjustable pole Highgains sound quite different from the ones on my 2001 330 which are more "singing".