Ric 5 - Looked for a long time, finally found one

[atb]

1991 4003s5

Sorry for the lousy phone pics! I haven't even plugged it in. The bass came in from Tennessee, and I immediately took it Ric expert Mark Arnquist to be gone through.

I was concerned that it might not be original, but he's disassembled it and confirmed that its all there.

On the to-do list:

1) truss rod adjusters reinforced
2) minimal neck pick up route mod (cavity filled and re-routed)
3) tail piece mod (you can see the lift in the pic)
4) vintage tone circuit pull pot install
5) Jet-glo refinish (it was done once already, but not done well)

Very stoked to have this bass! Can't wait to get it back and fire it up. I'll post pics of the mods so all can see.

Lots of tail piece lift, that will get fixed soon:

The money shot, five pole piece bridge pick up:

The Fiver has a little longer headstock to accomodate the "three on top" tuning machine layout. The neck is also just a little bit wider than the 4003.

 

[atb]

So here's the first mod completed.
I told Mark I wanted to be able to switch between vintage tone and full out. Here's his solution:

I don't know anything about electronics, but its plain to see that the two caps that were originally going to the PU selector switch are no longer there, and one was moved to the bass tone pot.

More pics and details as this project progresses!

 

[ggvicviper]

Cool! Definitely something you don't see every day.

 

[MarkoYYZ]

The pickup is crooked - I think you're going to have to send it back.

 

[Fishheadjoe]

Thanks for showing us the pics and congrats on your find!
Fishheadjoe

 

[Jaco Taco]

Coolness! Would love to hear some audio samples when you are done getting it refurbished.

 

[Marko 1]

Cool...

I often wondered if I'd be able to handle the tight string spacing on those.

 

[basspraiser]

Of man! Unique and very cool

 

[rockinrayduke]

So here's the first mod completed.
I told Mark I wanted to be able to switch between vintage tone and full out. Here's his solution:

I don't know anything about electronics, but its plain to see that the two caps that were originally going to the PU selector switch are no longer there, and one was moved to the bass tone pot.

More pics and details as this project progresses!

You sure picked the right person to take it to! The Doctor did a resurrection of my '79 4001. You've got a beauty there, so jealous!

 

[Gilmourisgod]

Very nice, a rare bird, always wanted to try one, literally never even seen one in person. String spacing may be tight for fingerstyle, but should be fine with a pick. How is he fixing the bridge lift?

 

[atb]

Thanks for the comments ( and jokes ) Spring spacing is tight, but all of my fives are pretty narrow so I'm good with it for fingering. It does have the narrowest spring spacing I've ever played on a bass over the pick ups.

I really wanted to avoid adding anchor screws to the stock tail piece. I know that the 4 string basses came that way for awhile, but I really wanted this bass to look stock.

So Mark started on the bridge lift solution today.

Starts with a solid piece of aluminum stock, drills out ball anchor holes.

Drill and countersink anchor screw holes.

Lots of hand forming to create the new tail piece.

Measuring for final mounting position.

One of my requirements for this project is that the bass must retain a stock appearance.

Notice how the new tailpiece fits within the footprint of the stock bridge. That's by design. Mark is retaining the stock bridge, and utilizing the stock saddle system, only the strings will be anchored by the new tail piece hidden under the stock bridge. That takes all the stress off the stock tail piece so that this project can meet one of my other requirements - the bass has to be able to be strung with rotos, and not wind up looking like this:

I know a lot of folks run low tension strings with great success and get a good sound, but for me it's rotosounds or bust. And given that my bridge is already starting to bend, this makes for a great solution.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

That's pretty ingenious. I was picturing something welded or epoxied into the original bridge, but that makes more sense. It looks like the center three strings will have a slight angle from saddles back to the ball notches, but I don't suppose it matters. I always wondered if you could fill the voids in the underside of the bridge with JB Weld or epoxy to get it stiffer, somebody must have tried this, so maybe it doesn't work.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

So here's the first mod completed.
I told Mark I wanted to be able to switch between vintage tone and full out. Here's his solution:

I don't know anything about electronics, but its plain to see that the two caps that were originally going to the PU selector switch are no longer there, and one was moved to the bass tone pot.

More pics and details as this project progresses!

I'm pretty clueless electronically too. How does he get vintage tone switching without adding and actual switch or a push-pull tone pot?

 

[atb]

@Gisg

The tight anchor position on the three center strings emulates the stock tail piece. It's kind of hard to see, but if you look at the pic in this thread (bass in open case), you can see how three middle strings get pulled together after the saddles.

On the tone circuit, I presumed that a pull pot was used to replace the stock bass tone knob. But if that isn't what is pictured, I'll have to ask.

I made a deal that as long as he sent pictures along the way, I wouldn't bother him with questions. LOL. So, I might have to wait until bass is in hand before I have any answers.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I don't want to sound like Debbie Downer on the electronics, the push-pull tone pot is the only way I know of to switch the vintage/modern caps without drilling another hole through the pickguard for a micro-switch, and all the push-pull pots I've seen are much deeper than standard. Maybe one of the electronics gurus can set me straight on how this is done. I know some Fender Strats have the S1 switching to add neck pup to any combination, and that's a switch button incorporated into the top face of the volume knob.

 

[JIO]

So, I'm confused… is this a factory 5-string Ric? And if so, they didn't account for even more string tension with an added B string? I had a 4 string 4003 with the added bridge screws which was a funky enough 'fix' to stop the bridge bending with the advent of Rotosound-type strings but it's hard to believe they produced a 5-string and jerry-rigged their standard 4-string bridge.

 

[atb]

This is the real deal JIO, live and in the flesh.

Rickenbacker didn't make any structural changes to the 4003 to compensate for the extra string load. They made modifications to accomodate the 5th string - the headstock is longer to make room for the extra tuning machine, the neck a little bit wider, fit a fifth pole piece on the stock bridge pick up, removed the four slot "claw" portion of the bridge above the mute - but other than that you're basically working with the 4003.

Even with the updated truss rod set up, a lot of the 4 string basses still had issues when using high tension bass strings.

On the 4003s5, the situation just got worse, especially on the tail piece: (below is random example I found on a Google search, I don't know the history of the bass in the picture)

 

[JIO]

This is the real deal JIO, live and in the flesh.
Rickenbacker didn't make any structural changes to the 4003 to compensate for the extra string load. They made modifications to accomodate the 5th string - the headstock is longer to make room for the extra tuning machine, the neck a little bit wider, fit a fifth pole piece on the stock bridge pick up, removed the four slot "claw" portion of the bridge above the mute - but other than that you're basically working with the 4003.
Even with the updated truss rod set up, a lot of the 4 string basses still had issues when using high tension bass strings.
On the 4003s5, the situation just got worse, especially on the tail piece: (below is random example I found on a Google search, I don't know the history of the bass in the picture)

amazing - what were they thinking? I mean, unbelievable considering their reputation - and how such reflects on their credibility. I can't think of anything close that Fender or Gibson ever produced that is as bad.

 

[kcole4001]

The tailpiece lift issue wasn't universal, and the extreme cases were rather rare, but there's plenty of evidence to show that the extra screws should have been fitted on the s5 basses.

The basses with the black hardware fared much worse than the chrome hardware even on the 4 strings.
Something about the heat treatment softening the alloy presumably.

A solid cast piece would have also been a good fix for the problem.

 

[A-Step-Towards]

amazing - what were they thinking? I mean, unbelievable considering their reputation - and how such reflects on their credibility. I can't think of anything close that Fender or Gibson ever produced that is as bad.

You heard about the other 5 string issue they had right? where there was barely any output from the B and G strings? They gave up on trying to build 5 strings after that.