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90s Fender MB-5 Wiring Diagram?

Verner

Verner

Dec 24, 2018
1,387
4,604
#1
My first bass at 16 was a MIJ Fender MB-5. Sold it when I was hard up in college, and it was used and abused and set aside. Recently came back into my hands. I am in the extensive process of fixing it up and am very excited to play it again someday soon. However, I cannot find a wiring diagram for this bass anywhere. Closest was an MB-4, possibly the squier model, but it shows only two wires coming from the pickups and my MB-5 has 4 wires (stacked pups I assume?). So it has 2 j style 4 wire pups, volume, blend stacked pot, and tone, I believe 500k. The Heartfield derivative instruments offer no insight as they were all active, at least the models I can find.

Does anyone have any idea where to get a real diagram? I solder well but putting the circuit together is not something that is within my wheelhouse. Even a pic of a working cavity would be helpful.

Thanks very much for any insight!
 
#3
I did a ton of research and found what I think is correct, I will dig through my files and post it later today. While I was doing that I just wired it as a jazz and haven’t gotten to changing it yet, so the info I have is experimental.
 
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#4
Verner said:
I did a ton of research and found what I think is correct, I will dig through my files and post it later today. While I was doing that I just wired it as a jazz and haven’t gotten to changing it yet, so the info I have is experimental.
Click to expand...

Great :) Thank you. I'm just going nuts about it. I tried some combinations, but I'm still gettig problems. It just doesn't work as it should.

If you connected it like a jazz bass, could you send me how you did it? I'm really confused why there are 4 wires ...

Thanks :)
 
#5
Ok, here are all the resources I was able to gather in my quest, including a few pics from a seller on reverb kind enough to send them. The pics are the first two attachments. Next is a typical jazz bass wiring I used. The cap in my mb5 was the same as a regular jazz bass. The third attachment is the stew mac blend pot wiring, which is probably the best one to go by. The last is the wiring for an mb4 bass, which was a squier but had the same controls.

So the 4 wires of the pickups was the most confusing aspect of the wiring, but the good news is it is deceptively simple. They are standard single coils, and only two wires are connected to the coil. To find which ones are the coil wires, just grab an ohmmeter and check which two wires give you resistance. The braided wire around everything goes to ground, and the other wire is grounded to the metal plate at the bottom of the pickup. This wire also goes to ground. If you don't have an ohmmeter, you can follow the wire that is soldered to the bottom of the pickup, which again just goes to ground.

The jazz bass wiring did not affect the sound, only the functionality of the controls. I will probably switch it to stock someday. Let me know if I can answer any more questions.

MB5 wiring pic 1.jpg
MB5 wiring pic 2.jpg
Jazz Bass Wiring.png
Stew Mac Blend Pot Wiring.png
mb4 wiring.jpg
 
#8
So, I have 2 MB-5s, and I still don't get why they have 4 wires if they're just single coils. It makes no sense! What a strange set up!
I love these basses, but they are noisy!
I was amazed to find a red one this last weekend at a used CD shop here in Nashville (Mckays for those who know the area). $359 and it's in mint condition with the original hard case and hang tags!
 

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