Pickup wire fraying - an issue?

[dlenaghan]

Posted this over in Pickups, no responses, thought to try over here since it's potentially a Repair issue.

I don't know if it's age or (more likely) inept handing of the pickup wiring over the 41 years of its life, but the neck pup in my Guild has one fraying wire (just between where the lead connects to the coils and the grey plastic sheath that runs the hot and ground wires to the control cavity), like it's been twisted too many times; I'm not sure if it's the hot or ground wire. The pickup's a single-coil, and it plays well, apparently full volume, and the tone doesn't appear compromised, so my question is this: are there any adverse effects I might not be noticing? I've had the bass less than a year and discovered this while cleaning it, so it's impossible for me to compare the sound pre-fraying vs post-fraying.

If all of the wire (since it is many strands braided, or twisted to make the whole "wire") isn't intact, can there be any loading at the pots? Is it like trying to ram a volume of water into a narrowed spigot? I have no background in electronics so I'm not sure what principles might be at play here.

[mech]

The volume of "water" put out by the pickup is very small and doesn't need much wire. A larger issue is that once a stranded wire starts fraying, it will eventually break. May be time for a maintenance repair to prevent future troubles.

mech