Hey all. I have a new-to-me 2018 standard, and i noticed it is noisy with overdrive, more than it should be. I touch the pickup covers, noise goes away. BUT, not when I touch the bridge... weird So I checked the cavity (PCB of course) and checked electrical continuity between all the grounds. Turns out, the solid copper wire is not connected to either of the bridge pieces. I don't know what it's connected to inside the guitar. It is secure into the PCB, and from the ground wire to the pot body, output jack, etc. the continuity rings good. But, there is no continuity to the bridge. Anyone see this before? They wired the damned things normally for at least 40 years, why do they have to screw with stuff that isn't broken. (I know, $$) but even cheap guitars are hand wired. I'm pretty sure a re-wiring job is in my future somewhere to replace that stupid PCB. But what about that damned ground wire? Where does it go?
I had that issue on an inexpensive SG copy. The ground wire was there and ran to the bottom of one of the tailpiece studs but wasn't actually touching them or the post. I stuffed some steel wool down there and Bob's your uncle! Do you see any wire coming off the PCB back into the guitar body?
Yeah, solid copper wire. I gave a gentle tug and it’s connected to something. Did you have to take the bushing out of the body, or just unscrew the pin?
I unscrewed the post and tried to tap the bushing in further as it was sitting up a bit and not touching the ground wire. That was unsuccessful so I went with the steel wool.
That will work but maybe not permanently. The ground wire is usually trapped between the bush and the wood of the body; this keeps it held tight. It sounds like on yours the wire was instead pushed down and lost contact. The permanent fix would be to pull the bush and put the wire back where it is supposed to be - alongside the bush.
Thanks all, I made sure everything was tight on the PCB, put everything back together and abracadabra it all works good now. A bit suspicious, but I’ll keep an eye on it. Not a fan of PCB, but it will do for now. Probably could use with a rewire eventually, I don’t like the taper on the pots. Anyway, that’s a separate thread. This one fixed for now. Need to go play this for a bit.
