Tele 72 Deluxe - New Pickups, what fits???

I have recently bought a Tele Deluxe 72 reissue in the FSR White colour, and am not happy with the pickups as they are, does anyone know of any pickups that will basically drop right in without the need for a custom built pickguard...I am loving the sound lately of Bareknuckle Mule pickups and some of their others. but dont know if they will fit well in the guitar, does anyone have any experience of off the shelf pickups for a Deluxe and their general opinions of good replacements for the stock ones.?I play in a punk covers band doing stuff from the late 70's and 80's, have recently sold my les paul custom 1974 which was simply breaking my back and want something that sounds similar in the pickups(it was fitted with stock t-tops from back in the day-stunning sound)...any help will be greatly appreciated.

I did a ton of research on this a while back, and the only two options I found were Rio Grande pickups, which makes a drop-in humbucker - seen here:

http://www.riograndepickups.com/scart/SubCategories.asp?ProductName=For+Tele&SubCatName=SETS--2+HUMBUCKINGS+for+TELE

And Telenator, who will take your existing pickups, gut them, and install one of three options in your existing case - seen here:

http://www.telenator.com/ (look for WRHB mods)

These are the only options I could find, aside from an expensive, original Seth Lover WRHB.

As I understand it, the Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster's HBs are closer to the original Seth Lovers, but they are impossible to find on their own.

It's a real bummer that there aren't more options to choose from. The 72 Deluxe, 72 Custom, and 72 Thinline are popular enough that you'd think there would be a bunch...

The Rio Grande would probably be closer to the LP humbuckers in design. The Telenator mods are more tailored to capturing the sound of the original WRHBs.

Hope this helps.

Actually, two more options:

Pete Biltoft at Vintage Vibe offers a couple of rewind options of the original stock pickups. His version uses easy to switch bar magnets and you have the option to use the magnets of your choice - A2, A3, A5, Ceramic, etc. Here's their site, though there's nothing specific to the Fender Wide Range Humbuckers on the site. Pete will take email queries though (he did for me anyway):

http://www.vintagevibeguitars.com/

You can also order a custom made replacement pickguard that is routed to accept standard sized humbuckers. Then you can use whatever HB's your heart desires...Duncan Seth Lovers or '59's, Lindy Fralin PAF's, on & on....

One guy that does this is on eBay for about $25-30:

http://stores.ebay.com/theguitarpartscenter

no affiliation to any of the previous mentioned vendors, though I am likely to do the Biltoft/Vintage Vibe rewind some time in the future.

The Rio Grande would probably be closer to the LP humbuckers in design.

Not exactly....the neck HB from Rio Grande...the "Tallboy" is like two Strat pickups wired as a humbucking. Has a different tone altogether than what you'd expect from a PAF equipped guitar or most LP's.

The bridge bucker is an overwound beast at 16 ohms (more than a Duncan JB). Actually both are wound kind of hot.

Not to imply anything negative about these pickups....honestly I've never heard the '72 versions, but I've heard the standard sized ones and they have a fairly unique tone.

It won't solve everything but have you changed the pots from 250k to 500k yet? That might help in the short-term.

It won't solve everything but have you changed the pots from 250k to 500k yet? That might help in the short-term.

Thanks for the replies lads, no I haven't changed the pots, can you possibly suggest ones available on ebay for me to change them to, I have looked but there are various lengths and dont want to buy the wrong ones, thanks again.

Curtis Novak also re-winds WRHBs, removes the steel bar magnet and installs threaded rod magnets. Not CuNiFe, but AlNiCo. But supposedly, sound amazingly close. So it's a total re-working of the pickup for about $140 ($60/bobbin for rewinding, $20 for threaded magnets).

Thanks for the replies lads, no I haven't changed the pots, can you possibly suggest ones available on ebay for me to change them to, I have looked but there are various lengths and dont want to buy the wrong ones, thanks again.

Don't use eBay for pots...by from some place like "hotrox" which is in the UK....I don't know which pots are i nthe 72s so you'd have to look at yours and match them to what hotrox has on offer

http://www.hotroxuk.com/

Don't use eBay for pots...by from some place like "hotrox" which is in the UK....I don't know which pots are i nthe 72s so you'd have to look at yours and match them to what hotrox has on offer

http://www.hotroxuk.com/
Thanks for the link mate, but im Farked if i can find Pots available on that site!!!!

http://www.hotroxuk.com/potentiometers-7491-0.html

http://www.hotroxuk.com/potentiometers-7491-0.html

Awesome job mate...Thanks

+100 on rewiring before changing the pickups. The stock wiring was done to reach a cost-point and definitely doesn't do any favors to the tone.

What you'll want to get:
500ka pots for volume
250ka pots for tone
.022uf tone caps of decent quality (sprague, mallory)
Shielded cable to replace the junk that's in the guitar.. I recommend getting some 4-conductor shielded cable (the kind used in pickups) to reduce the wiring mess.

There are lots of diagrams out there for modern and vintage style wiring for Les Paul type guitars. The following link will show quite a few examples.
http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/tonefreaks/558-wiring-library.html

If the guitar sounds muddy to you, especially as the volume is rolled off a little, a treble bleed cap will help. That said, I didn't like how thin the tone got with a traditional treble bleed setup. I found success with a treble bleed that works as part of the tone circuit, so its effect is turned up and down with the tone knob. Here 's a schematic of the design I use.
http://www.vectorstar.com/laird/music/wiring/Wiring%20LP%20Long%20Prog%20Bleed.jpg

Here's an alternate wiring that moves the pickup wires to the selector switch:
http://www.vectorstar.com/laird/music/wiring/Wiring%20LP%20Short%20fully%20independent.jpg

-Laird

http://donmarepickups.com/

http://donmarepickups.com/

Don Mare doesn't make a WRHB replacement. Does he?

Thanks, Laird!

Great post!

I had owen duffy rewind one for me.Iforget the exact specs but itwas ALOT better than stock