The coils in my j-bass neck pickup are "shifting"

[Eric Killinger]

Kind of hard to explain, basically the coils are falling down into the pickup, shifting down into them i mean, is it possible to fix this without disassembling the entire pickup? am i screwed? the reason I ask is because I dont ever remember this happening on any of my other basses and I just now noticed this was happening when I went and looked at my neck pickup about 5 minutes ago.


at first I thought "oh it must have been always like this, but I dont really remember" until I kinda pushed down onto one of the coils and it went into the pickup!


so yeah, is this an easy fix or am i screwed and need to buy new pickups?

[JMarkD]

If I understand your issue correctly you do not have a major problem. Fender pickups consist of the coils inside the plastic cover. The plastic cover is the part that mounts the p/u to the bass via the four screws, which also adjusts the height. The coil part, the actual pickup, sits up inside the plastic cover with nothing holding it up in there but the foam rubber that is under the pick up in the pick up cavity. If the foam is not thick enough, or has dried out, the pickup will not be pushed up firmly into the cover and can drop down.

If this is your issue, simply remove the strings, take out the four p/u mounting screws and carefully lift out the plastic cover. Since the p/u itself is already loose it will probably remain in the cavity. Handle it carefully as the coil wires are fragile. Gently move the p/u to the side and check the foam. You can add a strip of foam, any foam rubber will work, some use a cut up strip from a mouse pad. 1/16" inch thickness should do.

Then you can carefully place the p/u back inside the cover and use a piece of tape around the bottom to hold it in the cover while you reinstall the p/u and cover back in place. Re string and readjust your p/u height as needed (specs are available on the Fender site, but 1/8" from the bottom of the string to the top of the pole magnet is a good starting point (string fretted at the last fret).

I hope I have understood your issue correctly and that this info helps.

[The F-Bomb]

Originally Posted by JMarkD

If I understand your issue correctly you do not have a major problem. Fender pickups consist of the coils inside the plastic cover. The plastic cover is the part that mounts the p/u to the bass via the four screws, which also adjusts the height. The coil part, the actual pickup, sits up inside the plastic cover with nothing holding it up in there but the foam rubber that is under the pick up in the pick up cavity. If the foam is not thick enough, or has dried out, the pickup will not be pushed up firmly into the cover and can drop down.

If this is your issue, simply remove the strings, take out the four p/u mounting screws and carefully lift out the plastic cover. Since the p/u itself is already loose it will probably remain in the cavity. Handle it carefully as the coil wires are fragile. Gently move the p/u to the side and check the foam. You can add a strip of foam, any foam rubber will work, some use a cut up strip from a mouse pad. 1/16" inch thickness should do.

Then you can carefully place the p/u back inside the cover and use a piece of tape around the bottom to hold it in the cover while you reinstall the p/u and cover back in place. Re string and readjust your p/u height as needed (specs are available on the Fender site, but 1/8" from the bottom of the string to the top of the pole magnet is a good starting point (string fretted at the last fret).

I hope I have understood your issue correctly and that this info helps.

This -- I had the same thing happen to my Fender. I just cut out some strips of rubber for an old school mouse pad.

Problem fixed.

Good luck