Cross Post- G&L L-2500 PU and Kmod question

[strence]

Ok here is my story. I bought a used L-2500 Korean made tribute last month. I have been working on getting it set up to my liking. I put new strings on it, DR blue riders, and I have been pretty luke warm on them. Too much fret buzz and sympathetic tones. So I am going to switch out to Chromes. I like flats and higher tension.

But the big problem I am having is this:

Last night I attempted to do the K-Mod, because I like the clarity of single coil PU an d thought the mod looked relatively east. I used thishttp://www.bassesbyleo.com/paul/k_wiring/l2000k.pdf as my guide because my PU have 5 wires coming off each. White, Yellow, Green, and 2 black wires. Can't tell the difference between the black and blue. There is also this K-Mod schematic:

But this one only has 4 wire from each PU. What is the difference?

So anyway, I forgot how difficult soldering small wires was, but I got it done. It worked afterward EXCEPT for the neck PU the tone doesn't seem to change when the flip through series/SC/parallel. So I took a paperclip and tapped the inside and outside coils of each PU as I flipped through the toggle switch and the inside coil on the neck made a sound but pretty weak. The bridge mod worked, Nice and load click on both coils in Series and Parallel and outside only in Single Coil. So could I have wired this wrong? Or is it possible that one of the coils is weak or dead? How do you test this (ohm meter)? there are so many wires in this thing it is like a multi-colored bowl of spaghetti. Also my PU selector toggle in wired differently than the attached diagram. the lead from the neck PU (Yellow) is wired to down side of the PU selector toggle.

Any and all help would be appreciated. I want to like this bass but so far I am on the fence.

 

[strence]

ANYBODY???? I need some advice.

 

[line6man]

The fifth wire is most likely the shield ground. It should simply go to ground. To identify which wire it is, use an Ohm meter.

 

[sunbeast]

Also my PU selector toggle in wired differently than the attached diagram. the lead from the neck PU (Yellow) is wired to down side of the PU selector toggle.

Any and all help would be appreciated. I want to like this bass but so far I am on the fence.

Assuming you used the diagram in the link you posted, the reason you are having the issue is that your yellow lead is wired to the pickup selector switch instead of wired exactly as in the diagram in that link. Having the yellow lead sent directly to the pickup selector switch, but switching the other three wires to match that diagram would hardwire the neck pickup as inner-coil single-coil. Just follow that diagram exactly and you should be golden.

As line6man said, you have 5 wires because the 5th wire is soldered to the copper plate on the bottom of the pickup and grounds the pickup. US basses don't have that separate wire, and instead have the black lead from the pickup attach to the copper plate so it is hard-wired to ground via the pickup lead. The US ones can actually suffer from some noise when you do the K mod yourself unless you add that 5th wire and separate the black pickup lead from the copper plate.

The diagram that you attached to your post is the way G&L wires them when you order them from the factory with the K-mod, but they actually custom wire the coils in the pickup with different colors for those basses so it wouldn't work ideally if you were to do it on a stock G&L (the single coil mode wouldn't be hum-cancelling in the middle position).