Bridge pickup cuts out

[Waynerplays]

Thank you for accepting me to the group.

I have a Squier Jaguar bass with a problematic bridge pickup; the neck pickup is fine. The bridge pickup has been cutting out but I’ve found touching the poles with a screwdriver will get it working again… for a couple minutes only. All the wires seem to be solidly soldered on the volume pot.

The cable jack, cable, tone pot, and amp are fine considering there’s never been a problem with neck pickup.

Any idea what I may be missing?
TIA

 

[Waynerplays]

I should add that each pickup has its own volume knob, no switch.

 

[BassCajon]

I’ve found touching the poles with a screwdriver will get it working again… for a couple minutes only. All the wires seem to be solidly soldered on the volume pot.
TIA

Welcome to TB.
Didn't want to just copy and paste but check out my advice in this similar thread. But if you dont know how to solder then bring it in to someone who does.

Passive Jazz Bass. Why is this happening?

 

[Waynerplays]

Thanks, I’ll check that out!

 

[MidlifeBeginner]

Bad news is you might have a wire loose on the back of the pickup. The ground wire is the one I would expect. You would have to unstring the bass to get at the pickup. Unscrewing the pickup is pretty easy. Putting it back is a bit harder.

There is usually enough slack in the pickup wire to lift it up and flip it over. If wires in the control cavity have a plastic zip tie on them, you need to remove that to get slack.

 

[Waynerplays]

Bad news is you might have a wire loose on the back of the pickup. The ground wire is the one I would expect. You would have to unstring the bass to get at the pickup. Unscrewing the pickup is pretty easy. Putting it back is a bit harder.

There is usually enough slack in the pickup wire to lift it up and flip it over. If wires in the control cavity have a plastic zip tie on them, you need to remove that to get slack.

Here is a photo of the pickup wiring. I couldn’t find the exact diagram online as most have the ground soldered directly to the master tone, whereas mine is wired on the bridge pot along with the yellow/red/grounds from the pickups. All wires appear to be solidly soldered with no static when wiggled and plugged into the amp. Naturally at this point, everything is working perfectly , but for how long?

 

[MidlifeBeginner]

That all looks good. I am still thinking the bridge pickup could have a loose connection.

Pickup wire is very fine gauge. If a wire has a clean break under insulation, the break would not be visible even if you could access the wire. With temperature changes, the connection could come or go. The only way to definitively find such a break is with a very expensive cable tester.

If the problem keeps coming back, look at the back of the pickup. A break can happen where the fine winding wire connects to the pickup leads. I would struggle to resolder that connection.

If the winding has a short in it somewhere, the only solution is replacing the pickup. I had a guitar pickup I accidently caused a partial short in. It was an uncovered pickup I accidently scratched on the pickguard. Tapping on the pickup sometimes would get it playing full volume for a bit.

 

[Waynerplays]

Thanks for your reply!
When I inspected the wiring and had it plugged into the amp it worked as it should but after I screwed the plate into place the signal was lost. Now I’m pretty sure the ground wire from the bridge pickup must be loose on its volume pot. Not looking forward to the soldering job with all the wires attached to that terminal.

 

[ex-tension]

...after I screwed the plate into place the signal was lost. Now I’m pretty sure the ground wire from the bridge pickup must be loose on its volume pot.

How did you come to that conclusion? You already said:

All wires appear to be solidly soldered with no static when wiggled and plugged into the amp. Naturally at this point, everything is working perfectly...

Is there shielding in your cavity? Maybe something is shorting to the shielding when you put the plate in it's place?

Also, it's unreleated to your problem but the output jack and the tone pot so close (and touching?) to each other doesn't look good. You can try to rotate the tone pot towards the side of the plate.

The output jack with twisted wires around it doesn't look good either. Is that tightened good? You can untidy those wires around the jack and tighten it down good.

Here is a clean wiring example to give you idea:
https://performancemusic.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Untitled-1.jpg

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

How did you come to that conclusion? You already said:

Is there shielding in your cavity? Maybe something is shorting to the shielding when you put the plate in it's place?

Also, it's unreleated to your problem but the output jack and the tone pot so close (and touching?) to each other doesn't look good. You can try to rotate the tone pot towards the side of the plate.

The output jack with twisted wires around it doesn't look good either. Is that tightened good? You can untidy those wires around the jack and tighten it down good.

Here is a clean wiring example to give you idea:
https://performancemusic.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Untitled-1.jpg

I also wish to question the wiring by the output jack. From the pic it almost looks like wires wrapped around the instrument cable plug.

I disagree also that the wiring on this bass looks fine. Under the hood of my Squire Jag it looked nothing like this.
Did you buy this bass used? If so is it possible that someone messed around with it before you got it?

What I'm seeing is a whole mess of way too long wire lengths involved here. With all of the extra unnecessary wire having to be packed in around the components, I wouldn't be surprised that something gets pushed into contact with something else that it shouldn't when you close the hood.

 

[Waynerplays]

How did you come to that conclusion? You already said:

Is there shielding in your cavity? Maybe something is shorting to the shielding when you put the plate in it's place?

Also, it's unreleated to your problem but the output jack and the tone pot so close (and touching?) to each other doesn't look good. You can try to rotate the tone pot towards the side of the plate.

The output jack with twisted wires around it doesn't look good either. Is that tightened good? You can untidy those wires around the jack and tighten it down good.

Here is a clean wiring example to give you idea:
https://performancemusic.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Untitled-1.jpg

I also wish to question the wiring by the output jack. From the pic it almost looks like wires wrapped around the instrument cable plug.

I disagree also that the wiring on this bass looks fine. Under the hood of my Squire Jag it looked nothing like this.
Did you buy this bass used? If so is it possible that someone messed around with it before you got it?

What I'm seeing is a whole mess of way too long wire lengths involved here. With all of the extra unnecessary wire having to be packed in around the components, I wouldn't be surprised that something gets pushed into contact with something else that it shouldn't when you close the hood.

You’re quite right. I did get it used and the fellow said it was a project bass, but it was working fine when I bought it. Afterwards, it didn’t take long before things started to go wonky.
I know I’m not up to fixing it now that you are saying this, so I hope I can find a tech who has the proper wiring diagram and clean it up.
Thank you!