Complete Telecaster Wiring Kit — CTS, Oak Grigsby and Switchcraft

Upgrade your Telecaster’s electronics with professional-grade components, careful assembly and simplified installation.

The kit is delivered fully assembled on a temporary support, ready to be transferred to the guitar’s original control plate. Once the components are secured, only the two pickup connections and the bridge ground connection need to be soldered.

Components included

• 2 CTS 250k potentiometers

• 1 Oak Grigsby 3-way selector switch

• 1 Switchcraft output jack

• Vintage Gavitt cloth-covered pull-back wire

• 1 Orange Drop 0.047 µF capacitor (473 or 47 nF)

• 1 disposable temporary support for transportation and installation

Please note: the metal Telecaster control plate and control knobs are not included. The supplied support is only intended to keep the wiring harness assembled and protected until installation.

Installation

Carefully remove the components from the temporary support and secure them to your Telecaster’s original control plate.

You will then only need to connect the pickups and the guitar’s ground wire:

Bridge pickup — yellow marking

• Remove the yellow heat-shrink tubing to expose the terminal.

• Solder the bridge pickup’s positive wire to this terminal.

• Solder the ground wire to the casing of the volume potentiometer.

On traditional Telecaster bridge pickups, the ground connection is usually connected to the pickup’s metal baseplate.

Neck pickup — red marking

• Remove the red heat-shrink tubing to expose the selector-switch terminal.

• Solder the neck pickup’s positive wire to this terminal.

• The ground wire can be soldered together with the bridge pickup ground wire on the casing of the volume potentiometer.

On traditional Telecaster neck pickups, the ground connection is generally also connected to the metal cover.

Guitar ground connection

The ground wire is normally already present inside the electronics cavity and makes contact with the guitar’s bridge.

Solder this wire to the casing of either potentiometer. For convenience and to make better use of the wiring harness length, we recommend connecting it to the casing of the tone potentiometer.

Quick identification

• Yellow: bridge pickup

• Red: neck pickup

Important compatibility information

CTS potentiometers have shafts measuring approximately 9.5 mm in diameter, while many Chinese potentiometers use shafts measuring approximately 8 mm.

If the holes in your control plate are smaller, they will need to be carefully enlarged using a 9.5 mm or 10 mm drill bit.

We recommend having the installation performed by a luthier or a professional experienced in soldering and instrument maintenance.