Telecaster Tele 4-Way Wiring Kit CTS pots, Orange Drops, Grigsby 4-Way Switch

Telecaster 4-Way Wiring Kit

This Telecaster 4-way mod Wiring Kit is a powerful upgrade for the stock electronics of your Fender/Squier Telecaster. Packed with high quality components from top manufacturers, its an inexpensive way to improve the tonality of your guitar.

Compatibility

Our Telecaster wiring kit is a direct replacement for genuine Fender guitars,  and is also compatible with Squier/import models with a little modification. When installing on an Squier or import guitar, you may need to widen the control knob holes to ensure the pots fit. You may also need to replace your current guitar knobs with their imperial sized cousins.

All of our kits come with an easy to follow wiring diagram. For help on using our Les Paul 1950's wiring kit please refer to our video guide on Telecaster 4-way Mod wiring

The Telecaster 4-way Mod Wiring Kit includes:

• 2 x 250k or 500k Matched audio taper pots (10% tolerance)
• 1 x Capacitor (Orange Drop or Paper in Oil)
• 2ft of black cloth wire and 2ft of white cloth wire
• 1 x Oak Grigsby 4-way switch
• 1 x Switchcraft USA 1/4'' jack socket
• Heat shrink tubing

How it works

With the switch in position 4, the neck and bridge pickups play in series,  resulting in a fuller fatter tone. Other switch positions are the same as a normal Telecaster, adding an extra dimension to your Tele tone.

Pickup Switch Positions:
Pos 1. Bridge pickup with tone control.
Pos 2. Bridge and Neck pickup in Parallel
Pos 3. Neck pickup with tone control.
Pos 4. Bridge and Neck pickup in series

Orange Drop Capacitor

Orange Drop capacitors are often described as ’bright’ sounding and their primary benefit comes from their reliability, they essentially never go wrong. For a professional guitarist, stability and consistency is what you need in an instrument that has to play shows night after night, which is exactly why Orange Drop capacitors are so popular amongst guitarists and guitar builders.

CTS Audio Taper Pots

CTS pots are typically used by higher end guitar builders and techs but this is not due to any difference in tone. The main reason cited for using CTS pots is that they will last longer due to a more sturdy construction, and for that reason you’ll often find them used in USA-made guitars and guitar gear.

We supply audio taper pots for both volume and tone as these produce a smoother and more rounded sweep. All pots are metered and matched to ensure a perfect balance of tone and volume across all switch positions.

Switchcraft Mono Output Jack

Large guitar manufacturers will very often cut corners by using cheaper components, particularly on the input jack. Switchcraft have a great reputation for using only the highest quality materials in their input jacks, providing a significant durability and performance upgrade over stock input jacks.

Cloth Push Back Wire

Paper-in-Oil Cap Upgrade

Want an extra vintage tone upgrade? Add Paper-in-Oil caps instead of Orange Drop. Paper in Oil (PIO) capacitors are an older technology, highly sought after primarily due to their use in many vintage instruments such as 50s era Gibsons. The capacitor is literally filled with paper and a special oil before being sealed in thermoplastic, delivering a darker, warmer and smoother tone.

Heastshrink Tubing 

Perfect for insulating joints, and for funnelling wires through tight spots. An excellent and inexpensive way of keeping your wiring tidy. You will need a heat gun or the shaft of a soldering iron to shrink the tubing once fitted!

Treble Bleed Upgrade

This 0.001uF capacitor together with a 130k resisitor are soldered to your volume control, resulting in a more uniform sweep from 1-10 and preventing treble loss at lower volumes

Please note - This kit does require some minimal modification to the neck pickup. You will be need to de-solder the pickup casing and then add a second ground wire from the casing to the main circuit (see images). It is simple to do but if you are not comfortable please take your guitar to a guitar tech who can do this for you.

Will this fit my guitar?

Our wiring kit for Telecaster will fit all genuine Fender USA/MIM Telecasters and will also fit the majority of Telecaster type guitars and imported models.

Many imported models use the smaller Alpha pots, so it may be neccesary to drill your pickguard holes to 10mm diameter to accommodate the larger USA pot shafts. If you are upgrading your Alpha pots to CTS then you will also need to purchase imperial control knobs that fit the larger CTS pot shafts.

All of our kits come with an easy to follow wiring diagram. For help on using our Tele wiring kit please refer to our video guide on wiring a Telecaster