Musicmaster Bass pick up question

[RobBass33]

Hey yall, I recently purchased a 78 Fender Musicmaster Bass on ebay. I fell in love with other music master basses i played in the past. But this bass seems to have a bunch of problems I wanted to verify and get a second opinion on.

The input is poorly soldered (maybe i havent opened it up) and the signal cuts out, the cable must be propped in a certain position for it to work, its a bummer but not the worst.

So something very subtle that super gets on my nerves, When the bass is unplugged and I play the A and D strings (only on these not the E or G) i get a buzzing sort of like fret buzz, but it sounds like its coming from the bridge. Sounds really bad, but i cant tell if its being picked up when plugged in. The action on this bass is very good i think, so im almost 100% sure this isnt fret buzz (the strings dont even touch the first fret) Im trying to figure out what part of the hardware could be causing this raddle.

The biggest issue for me, which im not sure if every Musicmaster is like this or not, the pickups are a little noisey, but in a single coil hum kind of way. I was wondering is this just what the passive pickups are supposed to sound like? And if i replace it with say the Aero Musicmaster bass replacement pick up, does it have this same hum as i just described?

This is the sellers description "
PREVIOUSLY OWNED AND IN GOOD PLAYING CONDITION. MADE IN 1978 IN FULLERTON CALIFORNIA. HAVE CONSIDERABLE COSMETIC WEAR. FINISH CRACKS THROUGHOUT FINISH. PICK WEAR ON FRONT FACE BELOW STRINGS. BELT WEAR ON THE BACK. NECK HAS SLIGHT ARCH. FLATWOUND STRINGS ON IT CURRENTLY THAT SOUND WELL. NEED TO BE REPLACED. HARDWARE SHOWS MODERATE SIGNS OF WEAR AND AGING. ELECTRONICS WORK. PLEASE SEE PHOTOS FOR FINER DETAIL.
"

Moral of the story, never buy vintage gear on the internet. Id appreciate any help i can get, can post pics as well.

 

[solderfumes]

Re: your input, check the solder joints of course but I think it's also quite possible that the jack itself needs to be bent back into place -- by that I mean bending the prong that contacts the tip of the plug back toward the centre. If the joints look OK then it's worth trying this.

Buzzes from the bridge can often come from slightly ill-fitting screws, and aren't that unusual. I have a couple guitars that did this, and it came from one (or more) of the saddle height adjustment screws. In one case I didn't see any other ill effect, but on the other the vibration actually caused the screws to turn, lowering the saddle as I played! This is pretty easy to fix though with just a dab of Loctite Blue or even just vaseline on the screw: take out the screw, smear on the goop, and put it back in. If you have some, teflon tape will also do the trick.

The pickup is also single coil so some hum is to be expected. It looks like the Aero Musicmaster pickup is also a single-coil, so it would likely also have the same problem. If the hum is a dealbreaker then I imagine there are some stacked/split humbucking options out there, but I haven't ever looked myself.