Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi folks,

I've searched high and low, including on this forum, so forgive me if this has already been answered to death.

I am working on a friend's 1982 4003 (split pickguard). Cool bass but the wiring was redone at some point and the job was bad, and the harness needed to be replaced. Everywhere seems to be sold out of the Rickenbacker replacement harness, so I bought four pots, two caps, a switch, and a pre-wired stereo Ric-O-Sound jack assembly from PickOfTheRicks.

I wired everything up according to this schematic I found:
http://www.seymourduncan.com/support/wi ... ckenbucker
...hooking the two wires from the Ric-O-Sound jack harness where they're shown. I've gone over the wiring and the diagram several times and it looks like I've done everything correctly, but when I plug the bass in I get no signal, only bad hum that increases when I touch any of the ground parts.

Obviously I've gotten something hooked up wrong somewhere but a) I'm not good enough with electronics to figure it out, and b) finding a wiring diagram (not a schematic) other than the Seymour Duncan one is proving impossible. Can anyone point me in the right direction, or (if I take a picture and post it) tell me where I've gone wrong...? I'm working on this for my friend's dad and I want to get it right for him. Note: I've rewired lots of guitars and basses before without incident, or else I wouldn't have undertaken the task in the first place. But this funky Ric wiring has me tearing my hair out.

Thanks in advance - I owe you a beer.

That diagram is not exactly how RIC does it but it should still work. It sounds to me like you have a bad wire in there somewhere, possibly it got too hot while you soldered it or something nearby and the "hot" portion of the wire came in contact with either a shield (in the case of pickup leads) or else the surface of something grounded like a pot. This is easy to do without realizing if you're not a pro. Using a multimeter and the switch find (roughly) at what stage the signal dies and figure it out from there. If you get readings in the k-ohm range you are getting signal. It will go to 0 anywhere the signal is going to ground.

If you’ve followed that schematic 100% there won’t be any sound as there is no ground wire from the electronics to the output jacks. But, using a pre-wired jack assembly I guess you have soldered the ground screen on one of the ends to the back of one of the pots.

I did indeed solder the ground braid to the back of a grounded pot, yes.

I'll check it out with a multimeter - thanks!