Peavey T-40 Club Part 2

[mech]

@Dluxe .....The neck looks factory to me. Headstock details will tell the tale on it. But...the body looks to be contoured, not a slab, which would point to the '80s. Could be that some maple fretless necks were made in 1979 for a trial, not used and this one was a special order. I know you just got it set up but there is a date code on the back of the pots. 4 digits......the first two are the year of manufacture and the second two are the week of that year. Might be preceded by a letter. The volume pots and the tone pots may have different dates. The pickguard would have been assembled after the later date. The Peavey 8 digit part number will start with 750. I've never seen a T-40 with "toaster" pickups and bat handle switches unless the the original flat style were broken and replaced. I know it's a bunch of trouble but a good pic of the soldering on the switches would also help clear up this mystery.

 

[Honk'n_down-low]

If it's a 79 then someone modded it. My 79 has flat switches. Yours has bats and the blade pickups. It should be an early 80s.

I went by the serial number range and it is in the 79 range according to the serial number dating that has been shared here.

 

[Dluxe]

It's definitely a slab body. One of the switches was probably replaced as only one is flat. The headstock has the normal outline as well.

 

[Dluxe]

 

[UNICORN BASS]

Wow, that does look factory.

 

[ba55i5t]

View attachment 1110647 View attachment 1110648

Waiting for a Paul Young - Everytime You Go Away cover. Doooo ittttt.

 

[lug]

Now that's weird. I expected to see a pinstripe like this on a 6 digit headstock.

See how the pinstripe goes around the trussrod cover? The very early T40's did this but they quit doing this early on because it slowed down the assemblers. There were a couple variations before they went to the "across the bottom" technique you see on most. May have been a little overlap between the 6 digits and the pinstriping, not sure.

 

[mech]

One of the switches was probably replaced as only one is flat.

Thanks. I can see the round one is a mini in the larger pic. Done it myself. The phase switch is the one most often broken.

 

[CGremlin]

May have been a little overlap between the 6 digits and the pinstriping, not sure.

I think so. I have a 6-digit T-40 and a 6-digit T-60, neither of which have the TRC pinstripe, and all of the 6-digit T's I've seen otherwise have been stripe-less as well. I think it's probably even more rare than is generally thought.

 

[Honk'n_down-low]

I looked again my serial starts 0141 so it seems to be of 1983 vintage. I need to understand the controls what they change (more reading here) but this Bass Plays pretty well and has some good sounds. I'm running it through a Boogie Walkabout right now. Controls need cleaning - the input jack is cutting out some of I lean on the cord. I'm
Digging it though

 

[lug]

I looked again my serial starts 0141 so it seems to be of 1983 vintage. I need to understand the controls what they change (more reading here) but this Bass Plays pretty well and has some good sounds. I'm running it through a Boogie Walkabout right now. Controls need cleaning - the input jack is cutting out some of I lean on the cord. I'm
Digging it though

First thing to play with....vary putting one or both pup's tone controls under about "7". This will put them in single coil mode. I personally like to run the neck pup as single coil and the bridge as humbucking...your mileage may vary.

 

[ba55i5t]

I looked again my serial starts 0141 so it seems to be of 1983 vintage. I need to understand the controls what they change (more reading here) but this Bass Plays pretty well and has some good sounds. I'm running it through a Boogie Walkabout right now. Controls need cleaning - the input jack is cutting out some of I lean on the cord. I'm
Digging it though

Mine has this problem too. I just try not to lean on the cord and I plug it in and unplug it several times. Some cords connect better than others. I might get a right angled one just to seal the deal.

First thing to play with....vary putting one or both pup's tone controls under about "7". This will put them in single coil mode. I personally like to run the neck pup as single coil and the bridge as humbucking...your mileage may vary.

Putting them under 7 is humbucker, over 7 is single coil. Or, if you take off the pickguard you can cut the red wire that goes to the tone pots and disable the humbucking/single coil split and enable more high frequency overtones. It also makes up for the lack of volume and hum.

 

[Eilif]

I looked again my serial starts 0141 so it seems to be of 1983 vintage. I need to understand the controls what they change (more reading here) but this Bass Plays pretty well and has some good sounds. I'm running it through a Boogie Walkabout right now. Controls need cleaning - the input jack is cutting out some of I lean on the cord. I'm
Digging it though

Glad you're liking it. Check out the Infosheet link in my sig. It has an explanation of all the controls as well as just about everything else about the T-40.
Enjoy!

 

[lug]

Putting them under 7 is humbucker, over 7 is single coil. Or, if you take off the pickguard you can cut the red wire that goes to the tone pots and disable the humbucking/single coil split and enable more high frequency overtones. It also makes up for the lack of volume and hum.

(slaps head)...yep, I had a brain fart there.

 

[Achille]

Hi everybody! I just bought a t-40 by curiosity, mostly with the intention to resell it but...the sound is fantastic i can not believe it is passive, it is loud and compressed as an active bass, the electronics are work of a genius, a monster bass for not so much money so I decided to keep it. Only thing I did not like the edge of the body, too sharp on the front so I took an electric sander and made the edges more like a P bass here the results

before

and after

 

[Eilif]

Hi everybody! I just bought a t-40 by curiosity, mostly with the intention to resell it but...the sound is fantastic i can not believe it is passive, it is loud and compressed as an active bass, the electronics are work of a genius, a monster bass for not so much money so I decided to keep it. Only thing I did not like the edge of the body, too sharp on the front so I took an electric sander and made the edges more like a P bass here the results

before

View attachment 1304812


and after

View attachment 1304974

I tell ya, I'm of two minds about this. From a comfort perspective it's undoubtedly an improvement. Looks like you refinished it and though that appears to have removed some of the walnut-colored grain filler, the softer tone looks even and quite well done in all aspects.

On the other hand, the hard edges are part of the classic T-40 look and you probably just halved the value of a $600 instrument.

 

[JIO]

Hi everybody! I just bought a t-40 by curiosity, mostly with the intention to resell it but...the sound is fantastic i can not believe it is passive, it is loud and compressed as an active bass, the electronics are work of a genius, a monster bass for not so much money so I decided to keep it. Only thing I did not like the edge of the body, too sharp on the front so I took an electric sander and made the edges more like a P bass here the results

before

View attachment 1304812


and after

View attachment 1304974

Looks great - I would have done the same thing.

 

[JIO]

As promised from a few pages back - my T-40 powered Gilaxia - back to the future!

 

[kodiakblair]

Nice one @Achille
I don't see the harm in sanding down to comfort,also don't see how it's affected the value.
Break it for parts and still get $600

 

[Roy Royerson]

I'm pretty new to talkbass and haven't joined any clubs yet. Here's my 1981 T-40. This is the before the makeover picture. It's getting, at the least, new frets and a repaired jack once I start a new job next month. I do have all the original parts you don't see here. Im sure everybody here agrees the T-40 is a bit overweight and not the most beautiful bass in the world but she can hold her own in a beauty contest against the fenders, G&Ls and Stingrays of the world. More importantly she's got reliability, good feel, and most importantly great sound. I bought mine for $85 when I was broke and twenty years old. I needed a bass and while I was impressed in the music store I was expecting to just use it till I could afford something better. Soon after getting it home I realized I had a special bass on my hands.