Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I just unearthed some research I was doing last year relating to the wiring of the original '58 Capri's, and seeing as I reached a bit of a standstill, I thought it might make a good topic for discussion here.

I'd been curious about the wiring of the early 2 control Capris. Generally '58 325's but there were some other models made in the same period that probably also had this. What I'm talking about are the capris with a single volume, a single tone, and a single toggle switch.

The circuit doesn't appear to be as simple as you might think. In the case of a 325 with it's 3 pickups, logic suggests that without two seperate volume controls, the neck and middle pickups would completely swamp the treble pickup when the toggle was in the middle postion. I wanted to know how they got around this, so I went looking for any photo's showing the internal wiring of one of these capris. You can imagine how hard that was, but I did find one fairly good photo, which gave me some ideas. Next, Larry Wassgren was kind enough to send some pics showing the internal wiring of his prized '58 325. John Williams also sent along some excellent internal pics of one of his '58 Capri's. What I saw inside confirmed what I had seen in that other photo. There appears to be an extra coax running from the main circuit back into the body of the guitar. Unfortunately none of the photo's shows where this wire runs to, just that it dissappears inside the guitar heading in the direction of the pickups. I also discussed it with Tony Blair, who has a number of interesting old Rics. He recalls seeing a taped up section inside one or more of his early Rics that he thinks contained some components, but was never sure if it was original.

There are so few of these plain 2 control capri's in existance that not much is known about the circuit. One possibility is that there is a sealed section tucked away inside the guitar, containing perhaps a resistor network for balancing the levels for the toggle middle position. There's another possibility relating to some previously unknown wiring of the neck pickup, but I have to wait for more info on that.

I'd be very interested to hear if anyone has one of these very early capris and enough courage to have a look inside for that sealed section. Or perhaps Mr. Hall might be able to help? Perhaps there are some of his Dad's original circuit diagrams tucked away somewhere?

Anyway, all of this means that Lennon's 325 originally had something extra inside that has so far, remained unknown. Whether this was removed when the extra 2 controls were added later in '58, or whether it was left inside will possibly never be known. It's very unlikely to be there anymore since the rewiring by Ron DeMarino, and there are no other known untampered examples of '58 325's with the extra 2 factory added controls.

Just when we thought it was all worked out.....

Glen, that's a huge discovery and really interesting. Can you post some of those pics? Just when I thought John's 325 had been analyzed to death. If there IS some resistor network in there, can you imagine all the new mods that will start up? Prying backs off and firing up the router to make the "mystery cavity".
Oh, no.

Glen: What a Capricious finding!

It will be most interesting to see what wiring variations may be found in these early Model 325s. You have again demonstrated that a fresh look is often more revealing that one might first imagine.

So what is the drill on this mystery cavity? A couple of photos would be nice for this thread.

Glen, I would think a good place to compare Larry's wiring pics would be with the wiring pics of the long-body 325 prototype(#V87) in the Rittor book--those pics are great. I would think most if not all of the two-knob one-switch guitars with 3 pickups would have the same circuitry....

I think this has the potential to be a really cool thread. David McL and I were looking at the wiring in one of his 1957 Combo 850s just last night.

Lefty: Can you scan one of these wiring photos?

Peter, I don't have a copy at my disposal at the moment(I have bought one but I don't have it yet), but I'm sure there are others who do and can possibly scan the pics. Maybe David is out there and can do it, I dunno.

John or Glen, please post those pictures of my V106 here on this thread. I don't have the computer knowledge I should have! Maybe we can figure out the mystery here.

Should you wish, feel free to send them to [email protected] and I will resize them accordingly and post them here.

If Glen doesn't beat me to it, I'll do it in couple of hrs...The pics Larry sent to me are on my laptop, and I'm not there!! I'll send them to ya at the address above, Peter. Someone else will have to post the ones from the Rittor book...

Here are the pics I referred to.

The first one is V87 that Leftybass mentioned.



The second is Larry's. Larry's is not quite as closup as V87 but they do appear to have the very same wiring, which is good news.



Both have the two large red capacitors, 1 coax lead running in the direction if the jack, 1 thinner lead for ground to the bridge, and 4 coax's running in the direction of the pickups.

I believe there is some tie in with late 50's combo wiring, particularly the two pickup versions like the Combo450, which has the same controls. So far I don't have a photo showing the wiring of one of these, but perhaps someone here might be able to help. The jetblack one across pages 14 & 15 of the Bacon/Day book is a good example of the one I mean.

As we know some of the first Capri's actually had combo style wiring, so it wouldn't be too surprising to find that first 325's had a modified combo style wiring, rather than the conventional Ric circuit (which didn't exist then anyway). I'm working on a full schematic drawing and accompanying article for when I get the details sorted out.

Lots of interesting stuff here. Thanks for putting the pics up, Glen.

For these early 325s, one has to wonder when they quit cutting the routs with a forstner bit and went to a straight rout; by the serial number(V87)the long body 325 wasn't the first made, or was it randomly given this number at some point in 1958?

Electro-String apparently used Mallory pots in some of the early 325's(it's a fair bet that Radio-Tel was the supplier for these) but then switched to CTS at some point.

The 1957 Combo 850 that David and I opened up last night had the same Astron caps but had flat-back pots of some other manufacturer(CTS?)---but it looked all original to both of us.

The extra wiring might not be extra.The new pickup wires are single shielded(conductor to outer coil post,shield to ground and inner post),but the old one could be two non- shielded(one for the outer post,and one for ground and inner post).

Further closups from Larry confirmed that these are coaxial cables, and there is certainly an extra one running back into the body.

Here's another one if those odd Rics from the Rickenbacker website.

This rare 384 was possibly made the same period in late '57 when the first 325's were being made, and hence, shares the same control configuration. It has what I might call "Simplified Combo controls" just like the 325's. Does anyone else know of, or own one of these Rickenbackers from '57 or '58 with the same controls?

It could be any Capri, Combo450, or Model 950. Maybe we can get some more pics from inside one to help work this out.

Glen, hang in there as I'll get some more photos tomorrow and send them to you. Still trying to work out these close-up photos as they come out blurry and it's irritating. If anyone else can send photos, the more the better. The rare 384 in the photo above was sold by The Guitar Broker several years ago. Wanted to buy it but a thing called money got in the way.