Tragedy strikes my Jack Casady... Any thoughts?

So I have an epi Jack Casady as a sidepiece. I have always like the body shape since it came out when I was in high school, and I have had it for almost 3 years now. I enjoy the tone and it plays very nicely. I did replace the bridge with a hipshot, put on ultralite tuners to eliminate the neck dive, and made a new nut. Put some pyramid flats on and it is great. I don't enjoy playing it sitting down so much, the sharp edge is uncomfortable on the large body unless I hold it classical guitar style. I think Gibson basses were more of an afterthought as far as design went, meant to compliment already existing guitar lines and designing around that. No complaints, it created some unique instruments.

Anyway, I keep this bass at school where I teach orchestra and allow my students to use it. The jack is just surface mounted on the body and it isn't the best arrangement in my opinion. It tends to get loose easily and adjusting anything in a hollow body is a real pain.

So the kids must have been twisting that darn jack, and it broke the wire internally. I took the whole thing apart, and the low impedance pickup wiring is unlike anything I have ever worked with. The low output pickup is fed through a small transformer to boost the signal three ways, which runs through a varitone as well as the usual volume and tone. The wire leading to the output comes directly from the transformer, which is filled with epoxy. The wire broke at the epoxy, no strands protrude. The wire is frayed, this was probably something that was exacerbated over time.

I tried to source the part from epiphone, but they only deal with dealers. Dealers are telling me they probably can't get the part unless it is warranty work, which this is not. To their credit, my local shops are trying. No part number for the transformer. I even friended Jack Casady on facebook and sent a pm to see if he could move some epi gears, but I haven't heard back, which I totally understand.

So my thoughts are I have a few choices going forward:

1. Wait for parts to show up on ebay or reverb, but given this bass isn't especially common that may never happen
2. Buy a new pickup (there is a company in England that makes a drop-in splittable humbucker package for about $230 shipped)
3. Drill into the epoxy and try to find the lead or terminal and flood with solder

Looking for any thoughts or previous experience to chime in. Again, not a priority, this is mostly a fun bass to have around for me, so I can be patient. Wire broke off in between the black and green wire on left in pic.

 

That's exactly what they said! "unfortunately we can't help you directly, all repair and parts questions need to be addressed with an authorized Epiphone dealer". I think this is a really bad approach to customer service, and even though I don't plan on many future epi purchases it makes me even less inclined to do so. I was surprised to say the least.

 

I asked where I could get part specifications and they said the same thing, have to go through a dealer. I will call again and be a bit more aggressive as the dealer route isn't panning out. I am assuming they probably outsource most of their parts, so I am betting this little transformer exists somewhere on mouser or something like that. If I could get specs or a part number that would solve a lot of problems..

 

@Lobster11 just sent an email, thanks for the idea. I agree, it should not be this difficult.

 

@JKos that was my thought, I just don’t have high hopes on that front. I feel like the black epoxy dust will just cover up whatever I am looking for while I destroy any metal. But worth a shot I suppose.

 

I think epi at this point mostly produces guitars like most other second tier brands, outsources specs to existing factories. I would like to imagine a secluded electronics whiz in a dark room producing custom transistors but those days are mostly over.

 

That's an idea, I also have a bunch of cheap small gouges someone gave me that I have never used. Wonder if I could sharpen them up enough to scoop small bits of material out.

 

The last Epiphone I owned (and LOVED) was a 1945 broadway archtop acoustic. Younger days, not good with finances and it paid the rent for a few months. Wish I had been more grown up in my early 20s.