Super n00b wiring question (swapping my cheapo strat internals with a wiring harness from an American Vintage II 1957 strat)

[Sfusiondj]

Hi All!

As the title implies, I'm in the process of upgrading my el-cheapo Chinese-made Bacchus BST-2 "strat". I live in Korea, and have been perusing the local online used-gear community and have found this --> CLICK ME

Basically it's the guts (minus the pickups) from a Fender American Vintage II 1957 strat. I guess my question is two-fold:

1. Do you think these components are worth the asking price of 170,000 korean won (+- 120 USD)?

2. My guitar's default config is HSS, but of course the AV II is SSS. So would it be fairly simple to wire in my guitar's pickups to this setup, or will I encounter complications? What do I wire to where exactly?

I'm going to drop two pictures below, for reference. The first is a generic picture of what an AV ii 1957 looks like under the hood. The second picture is what my Bacchus BST-2 currently looks like under the hood. You'll notice one of the tone pots in my guitar is push/pull - to split the humbucker. I know I won't be able to keep the split functionality if I convert to the AV II harness, which is perfectly fine - I just want a regular functioning humbucker.

Thanks in advance!!!!

 

[sunburst_xxii]

Hello, and welcome!

I don't really know too much about wiring / electronics in general - but I just thought I would check out the parts prices, and see what they add up to. These parts / prices are all from Sweetwater. I couldn't find the parts circled in white, or the wire - so I just estimated / guessed. As you can see, what the seller is selling for, and what the individual parts cost - are *almost* exactly the same, give or take a few dollars either way.



So... I don't know if that helps or not! Going by the prices, it seems the seller's price is not too bad, but of course if you could get it for a little less - that would be great! There are others here who know a lot more about this sort of thing, in general - hopefully they will contribute at some point, with regards to your specific wiring inquiries.

 

[tubedude]

Be aware that many offshore Strat copies have different dimensions. You may have to do a little drilling or carving to get a fit.

 

[Stephen James]

Hi All!

As the title implies, I'm in the process of upgrading my el-cheapo Chinese-made Bacchus BST-2 "strat". I live in Korea, and have been perusing the local online used-gear community and have found this --> CLICK ME

Basically it's the guts (minus the pickups) from a Fender American Vintage II 1957 strat. I guess my question is two-fold:

1. Do you think these components are worth the asking price of 170,000 korean won (+- 120 USD)?

2. My guitar's default config is HSS, but of course the AV II is SSS. So would it be fairly simple to wire in my guitar's pickups to this setup, or will I encounter complications? What do I wire to where exactly?

I'm going to drop two pictures below, for reference. The first is a generic picture of what an AV ii 1957 looks like under the hood. The second picture is what my Bacchus BST-2 currently looks like under the hood. You'll notice one of the tone pots in my guitar is push/pull - to split the humbucker. I know I won't be able to keep the split functionality if I convert to the AV II harness, which is perfectly fine - I just want a regular functioning humbucker.

Thanks in advance!!!!

View attachment 815587
View attachment 815589

Be aware that many offshore Strat copies have different dimensions. You may have to do a little drilling or carving to get a fit.

As @tubedude said, some strat copies aren't up to spec for interchangeable parts. You are planning on using the pickguard and pickups that came with the guitar, only swapping in the pots/switch/wiring, correct?

If so, you might need to ream out the holes for the pots, the holes are usually undersized when they come with dime-size pots and need to be enlarged to about 9mm diameter to fit the cts pots. Also, you need to check the body width/electronics cavity depth, sometimes the body isn't thick enough to accommodate a full-size crl switch. According to this CRL spec sheet you need about 33.5mm of cavity depth for the switch.

As far as whether it is a good deal, I don't know the availability of cts/crl parts in S. Korea, and with the tariff mess I don't know that prices will get better than now. I do know $125 (in the US at least) is about half the money you'd need for a good/great playing Squier, and I'd personally rather save and get the Squier. I have a feeling the parts aren't going to give you $120 worth of increased tone, maybe they'll provide piece-of-mind, but don't expect the tone to change much, if at all, since you aren't changing pot values and/or pickups..

 

[Maranello94]

Be aware that many offshore Strat copies have different dimensions. You may have to do a little drilling or carving to get a fit.

This! Even Fenders from different years may have slightly different dimensions

 

[Sfusiondj]

Hello, and welcome!

I don't really know too much about wiring / electronics in general - but I just thought I would check out the parts prices, and see what they add up to. These parts / prices are all from Sweetwater. I couldn't find the parts circled in white, or the wire - so I just estimated / guessed. As you can see, what the seller is selling for, and what the individual parts cost - are *almost* exactly the same, give or take a few dollars either way.

View attachment 815595

So... I don't know if that helps or not! Going by the prices, it seems the seller's price is not too bad, but of course if you could get it for a little less - that would be great! There are others here who know a lot more about this sort of thing, in general - hopefully they will contribute at some point, with regards to your specific wiring inquiries.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this, Sir!!! Immensely helpful, and can't believe I didn't think of doing it myself.

 

[Swamp_Thang]

I wouldn't bother. Just add some Alpha pots and an Oak Grigsby switch. It will be cheaper and have much the same effect.

 

[The_idiot]

Humbucker with 250k pots and a ,1 uF capacitor is likely not a good combination.

What pickups are you using? You will want to cater the electronics to the pickups.

Good luck.

 

[Swamp_Thang]

I just checked and 3 Alpha pots, a 5 way switch, an Orange Drop cap and a Switchcraft jack should cost under $50k won.

 

[Sfusiondj]

Humbucker with 250k pots and a ,1 uF capacitor is likely not a good combination.

What pickups are you using? You will want to cater the electronics to the pickups.

Good luck.

True this! Can't believe I didn't consider the 250k pot values being mismatched with the humbucker. Super ironic considering I changed the pots of a previous guitar I had to make the humbucker sound brighter.

I've already bought the wiring harness in question (American Vintage II), and it's currently out for delivery. In light of the points raised above, I've amended my vision as follows...

Use the volume pot, first tone pot, and cap from the new harness, and keep the original second tone pot (which should keep the push/pull functionality of the humbucker in tact too, right?). Does this sound workable? I'm also planning to change the neck and middle pickups, and have taken delivery of a pair of a pre-loved Fender 57/62 pickups (neck and middle only, no bridge pickup needed obviously). Unfortunately the neck pickup has an anomaly that has me concerned. I'm about to open a new thread for that...

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far. Hopefully the new harness will be able to fit inside the guitar's control cavity (I'm worried about the switch in particular not having enough clearance), but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there (as well as the bridge of potentially needing to enlarge the holes in the pickguard for the new pots).

You guys are awesome!

 

[The_idiot]

True this! Can't believe I didn't consider the 250k pot values being mismatched with the humbucker. Super ironic considering I changed the pots of a previous guitar I had to make the humbucker sound brighter.

I've already bought the wiring harness in question (American Vintage II), and it's currently out for delivery. In light of the points raised above, I've amended my vision as follows...

Use the volume pot, first tone pot, and cap from the new harness, and keep the original second tone pot (which should keep the push/pull functionality of the humbucker in tact too, right?). Does this sound workable? I'm also planning to change the neck and middle pickups, and have taken delivery of a pair of a pre-loved Fender 57/62 pickups (neck and middle only, no bridge pickup needed obviously). Unfortunately the neck pickup has an anomaly that has me concerned. I'm about to open a new thread for that...

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread so far. Hopefully the new harness will be able to fit inside the guitar's control cavity (I'm worried about the switch in particular not having enough clearance), but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there (as well as the bridge of potentially needing to enlarge the holes in the pickguard for the new pots).

You guys are awesome!

Sounds like you've got a plan. '57/62's are very nice pickups (I have a set) and will work perfectly with that harness.

What is the resistance of your current push/pull tone pot? (Assuming approx 500 k ohms)

A .1uF capacitor is larger than any that you will see on a modern guitar. It's really only used on vintage reissues. Some people will tell you that with the tone control at 10 the capacitor makes no difference and will not bleed any signal to ground. I disagree and believe that even at 10 the capacitor has an effect. albeit minor.

All this to say that I think that the .1uF will work with the humbucker but I would use two capacitors with that circuit: the .1uF for the middle and neck '57/62's and a .015 or .022 uF for a humbucker.


Good luck with the fitment and all. Given the size of that push/pull pot I don't think that you will have a problem.

 

[Sfusiondj]

Sounds like you've got a plan. '57/62's are very nice pickups (I have a set) and will work perfectly with that harness.

What is the resistance of your current push/pull tone pot? (Assuming approx 500 k ohms)

A .1uF capacitor is larger than any that you will see on a modern guitar. It's really only used on vintage reissues. Some people will tell you that with the tone control at 10 the capacitor makes no difference and will not bleed any signal to ground. I disagree and believe that even at 10 the capacitor has an effect. albeit minor.

All this to say that I think that the .1uF will work with the humbucker but I would use two capacitors with that circuit: the .1uF for the middle and neck '57/62's and a .015 or .022 uF for a humbucker.


Good luck with the fitment and all. Given the size of that push/pull pot I don't think that you will have a problem.

Thank you, Sir! I have a plan, yep, but still no idea how to wire it up Hopefully ChatGPT can shed some light. Thanks again for the advice, much appreciated!