Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just got my bass back from the shop, and I think the tech mounted the hi-gain pickup wrong. I have the two screws that allegedly adjust the height, some rubber washers, and some nuts. The nuts were on the underside of the pickup, and the rubber washers were between the pickup face and the back of the guard.

The problem is that when I lower pickup: it's loose against the guard, and rattles. I tried putting the nuts on before the pickup (as in: between the pickup face and the back of the pickguard) to hold the height adjustment screws in-place, but they lock-up when under tension, thus making it so I can't adjust the pickup height. I then tried putting the rubber washers between the guard and the nuts, and then mounting the pickup, but the rubber washers just seemed to help the mechanism lock-up quicker as opposed to enabling the screw to turn freely while remaining snug against the guard.

I looked under the hood of a friend's 4003, and it didn't help at all; his does not have nuts, and the pickup is snug against the guard, though his action is also noticeably higher than on my instrument.

I've only been able to find an "official" diagram for the treble assembly, but not for the bass pickup assembly.

Surely there is someone here who knows how this is really supposed to fit together. I did some preliminary searching of the forum and found nothing, so I apologize if this has been addressed.

My assumption is that the rubber washers are supposed to keep things together and that mine are just worn-out; they don't stay against the guard, and move freely up and down the screw.

I feel like springs or rubber tubing between the pickup face and the rear of the guard would be a good idea..

The stock neck setup for a 4003 neck pickup is (in order of appearence) 4-40 Phillips screw/pickguard/rubber grommet/and THREADED pickup baseplate. There shouldn't be any nuts on there at all, except the four corner nuts for the four screws that hold the pickup together. Since the grommet is a bit thick, and restricks movement, I slice one down the middle like a bagel, and use each half in place of a complete one.

As Dane infrered, there must be something wrong with the baseplate on your hi-gain pickup. Is it a bass (4 pole pieces) or guitar (6 pole pieces)pickup your tech put in it? Either will work and sound fine given that a toaster pickup is a 6 pole guitar pickup at heart, but the mounting methods are slightly different between the two of them.

Thank you both for the input.

My rubber grommets are just totally f'ed, so I've used some rubber tubing between the pickup and the guard; the problem seems to be solved, as I can slap with impunity and the thing doesn't budge.