Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

i have a 4003 that's about a year and a half old. i never sent in the warranty card. a few weeks ago, all sound ceased coming from the bridge pickup (regardless of the position of the push-pull pot). what should i do in this situation?

two notes:
- i really don't want to open it up and crawl around in there myself. been there, done that, sick to death of solder flux fumes.
- i live near jim mouradian, builder of the famous CS bass for chris squire, and proprietor of a guitar repair shop.

your expert advice will be greatly appreciated.


- pete

Hey, Pete. Have you played with the pickup selector switch while plucking a note? Are you plugged into the Standard jack? Try the Ric-O-Sound jack - that should give you only the bridge pickup and the volume/tone circuits for it.

hi, john; thanks for responding.

johnallg wrote:Hey, Pete. Have you played with the pickup selector switch while plucking a note?

yep. neck pickup works fine, bridge pickup is dead.

johnallg wrote:Are you plugged into the Standard jack? Try the Ric-O-Sound jack - that should give you only the bridge pickup and the volume/tone circuits for it.

tried both, of course; same result.

what would you do from here? my main concern is having the same tone again when it's fixed. i've owned 5 rick basses and played probably another hundred over the years, and the one i have now is one of the best two i've ever played (the other was a chris squire reissue that i couldn't afford at the time). i'm a bit anxious that if a pot or capacitor gets replaced, it won't sound the same. i'm willing to buy an entire new wiring harness from rickenbacker if i have to, but at their prices i'd rather avoid it if it's not necessary. does rickenbacker do repairs for money after the warranty has expired? i mean, it's true that i didn't send in the warranty card (which i still have, by the way), but it's obviously a real rick, as i'm sure they themselves could verify if i sent it in to them... should (can) i send it to rickenbacker? should i buy a replacement wiring harness and have jim mouradian install it? should i let mouradian look it over first and take it from there? or do i finally (groan) have to take the thing apart and look at it myself? (for the record, i'm perfectly capable of doing this sort of stuff, it's just that i'm so over that kind of tedium [same goes for PCs] - i'd rather pay somebody else to do it while i spend the time playing one of my other basses...)

I've had a couple of bad solder joints on my pickups (like 3 out of 10). A couple of years ago their was a solder change causing problems. You might have to have it ohmed out. I fixed them all with a reheat.

Sounds like you should bring it to jim mouradian. He'll figure it out.

If you're not willing to open it up and troubleshoot it yourself, the only alternative is to take it to a guitar tech who will.

chrisdski wrote:Sounds like you should bring it to jim mouradian. He'll figure it out.

+1. If you really don't want to check it out yourself, the first logical step is take it to a good tech for just an evaluation. Most likely it will be a minor problem, like the selector switch has a bent / dirty contact. If it's a larger issue, then you can weigh your options ie: sending it back to Rickenbacker etc.

beatlefreak wrote:If you're not willing to open it up and troubleshoot it yourself, the only alternative is to take it to a guitar tech who will.

or send it to rickenbacker.

i guess part of what i was asking is whether rickenbacker has ever shown any leniency towards late warranty registrations.

Not after a year and a half. He'll be unable to send it to RIC, as the warranty card was never filled out and sent in.

The worst that could be wrong is a bad pickup, and chances are in favor of it being a broken wire or bad solder joint in the harness. Caps and resistors seldom go bad in such a short time, and RIC uses top-shelf components, so this is probably not the issue...

If you have to replace the pickup and you've got dog's ears, you might notice a tone difference.

Take it to your tech and have him trace the wiring. There's a good chance that's where the trouble is coming from.

The most likely explaination is a bit of dirt on the switch.

well, i took my bass to jim mouradian, and boy am i glad i did; he got to the bottom of the situation in no time. the problem turned out to be the actual coil winding; the wire broke somewhere deep within the coil (as opposed to right at the ends where it comes out of the bobbin). on jim's recommendation, i sent it to lindy fralin's shop to be rewound.

thanks to all who responded.

Glad you got some resolution to the problem.

That 'splains it. Thanks for the followup, Pete.

jacolyte wrote:well, i took my bass to jim mouradian, and boy am i glad i did; he got to the bottom of the situation in no time. the problem turned out to be the actual coil winding; the wire broke somewhere deep within the coil (as opposed to right at the ends where it comes out of the bobbin). on jim's recommendation, i sent it to lindy fralin's shop to be rewound.

thanks to all who responded.

EXCELLENT!

Sorry I found this so late, I was going to say, Jim is an amazing guy and very easy to talk to....and to state the obvious, knows his stuff too!