Pickup winding question

[thefees]

My 66 Tele has had a neck pickup go in the past, and so I replaced it with a Seymour Duncan Vintage. It sounded the same. That was 15 years ago. Well the neck pickup is not working again.
So I pulled the guitar apart, and started doing some sniffing around. With the guitar plugged into an amp I can lift the neck pickup and touch the bottoms of the magnet poles coming through and they all make a humming sound when touched as does the white wire as opposed to the black ground. Yet when I tap on the top of the pickup cover nothing comes out of the amp, and yet when I tap on the top of the bridge pickup you can clearly hear it coming out of the amp. (I took it apart because the neck pickup wasn't working when i had strings on it)
So my question is;

Does this mean the windings failed in the neck pickup? The cover has been on it all along. What makes windings fail?

The volume, tone knob, and selector switch are all original. I was wondering if that may be the culprit but then, why would I get the clear humming sound when touching the magnet poles underneath the pickup which would indicate the signal is going all the way through?

[Bill M]

If you are handy with a soldering iron try retouching the 2 solder joints on the pickup. If that does not work it may be time for a new pickup or a rewind. Do you still have the original 66 neck pickup? If so I would have that one repaired/ rewound. Many winders do rewinds including myself. I specialize in vintage rewinds.

[Bartholomew3]

I have a 68 tele with a 69 Dimarzio PAF at the neck - one of the copper winding wires seems to have seperated and it sounds tinny with too much treble so time to replace. Might put the originals back.

Have no idea why the windings failed but after that many years...

[thefees]

Originally Posted by Bill M

If you are handy with a soldering iron try retouching the 2 solder joints on the pickup. If that does not work it may be time for a new pickup or a rewind. Do you still have the original 66 neck pickup? If so I would have that one repaired/ rewound. Many winders do rewinds including myself. I specialize in vintage rewinds.

Bill,
Thanks for the reply. Yes I have the original neck pickup. The problem is that I hate the noise. I have a new set of vintage noiseless by Fender that I am seriously considering swapping out both. You see I am building a top drawer studio and I don't want to be dealing with the buzz. I also don't want to be playing my 66 out and about in fear of someone stealing it. I have 14 guitars, and would prefer to use one of them live. So the 66 is stuck for stuido use where I will capture it on film doing music videos. That is especially the one that I want quiet.

So of course the taunting question is does the original pickup sound that much better? So much so that I would want to deal with the noise? I have a Boss GT10 which I feel I can shape and model the sound with.

Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.