Hello, this is Rick Andrews owner of Andrews Guitar and a long time member of EvO:R. This section has been put together to help you with your guitar related questions. I did not agree to do this so I could simply plug my guitars, I did this so you could finally have answers to many of those burning questions you may have had about your guitar.

Yes, I would definitely want to keep that puppy as original as possible.

One thing to consider is that the coils or windings in the pickup are the resistance of the signal. The more resistance the higher the frequency and stronger. The thing is the resistance has not really changed in the pickup so the difference you are hearing is not the pickups. They will either work or they won't if the coil is broken. So that will not change. It is the other things that do change with age over the years.

The control pots have wipers inside that change the resistance which is how you change the tone. Every time you move the tone or volume pot it wears a tiny bit more, thus the resistance when worn out is not the same. Replacing the volume and tone pots along with new capacitors will bring that baby back, but be sure you get the exact same style and same value pots. You can call Fender co. and get them to tell you the exact value capacotors in mf . . . that is microfareds or micrafareds, I don't remember how to spell that but if it was originally .05 or .047 mf then you want to match that. The pots could be 250k ohms or 500k ohms, most likely 250 then match those. Be sure they are audio taper and replace these items and you are back on track again.

Actually I would replace the pots first only and see how it sounds. The capacitors may not need replacing at all. Pots first and give it a listen. Only the caps if needed after that. If the pickups work then they should be OK. The strength of the magnets in the pickups can weaken and make a difference but I would go with replacing the pots first, if that doesn't fix it, then the capacitors, and if that doesn't fix it, then worry about the magnets. Only then would worry about the pickups. If it then becomes neccessary to replace the pickups then you can get Fender to tell you where to find them. Fender may replace them to match the existing.
Rick Andrews-Andrews Guitar

EvO:R is proud to say that we know Rick Andrews personally and we are very excited about his willingness to answer all your guitar related questions.

Visit Rick at Andrews Guitars.com!