GFS pickups

mjbphotos

Moderator
I've generally heard good things about the GFS pickups (from guitarfetish.com)
I replaced the neck pickup on my 72 Tele a few years ago as the old one's volume had gone downhill, suspect the windings were rusting away. So I put an alnico pickup in and it made the bridge pickup sound wimpy. Now the bridge pickup's volume has diminished too, and the jack and tone control have given some crackling noises on occasion, so I started looking around and saw that I can get a whole set of GFS pickups and a wiring harness for $79:
Neck: KP - Alnico Stagger Tele Neck Pickup Classic Chrome Cover - Kwikplug® Ready
60's style bridge: KP - Repro 1960's HOT Alnico Tele Bridge Pickup - Kwikplug® Ready
Harness: Kwikplug Tele Style Wiring Harness- PRE-SOLDERED Drop-In
And the good thing is I don't have to try my limited soldering skills, as the pickups use their quick-plug method.
What do you think?
 
I don't have experience with those specific pickups, but theyre not too far off from the pickups that came stock in the XV620s that I own, and I can tell you that those are really pretty great. Don't think you'll be disappointed.

I also own a model that they seem to have discontinued that's like a tele but with an offset Jag/JM style body, and that had about the same thing in the bridge. I always replace these with their rail HBs and wire them to be splittable for a lot more options, and I would definitely suggest that. IDK if they sell a pre-wired harness for that, though.
 
Do you still have the original pickups?
If so, why not get them fixed?
on my 1966 strat I swapped pickups years ago...long story short...I let 2 original pickups get away from me. This year the one original died on me. After much searching I decided to let a guy who makes pickups and sells them on ebay (John Galep- dawgtown pickups) fix my original and make a pair fashioned after the original. Phenomenal work! The duplicates ran me about $50 a piece and the repair of the original was less than that.
I have a thread about it with some pics.

Repairing the originals is like getting pickups for free, because it will increase the value of your vintage guitar more than the cost of repair.

If possible, I would keep all wiring, pots, jacks, caps, pickups, and switches 100% original. No way in hell would I jerk out the vintage stuff and install GFS stuff on a 1972 Tele. You would literally be taking away half the guitars value.
my 2 cents
 
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I have some GFS alnico overwounds in my strat and they're really quite good.
I also have a set of their tele pickups in my tele and it's an excellent traditional sounding tele.

Both sets sound as good as stock Fender stuff easily.

I can't imagine you'll be disappointed and, personally can't see it being worth the additional expense of trying to fix your bad p'ups .... first, that doesn't always work and second, the GFS stuff will sound about as good.
 
Yes, I still have the original neck pickup. If I knew anyone in this area (north of Boston) who could do the work, I'd use them - but the crackling tone and jack problems are unlikely to be 'fixable', having the pickups rebuilt is only part of the problem.
 
I've tried contact cleaner, and it really didn't do much. Also pulled the (original) jack, couldn't see any problems with it, and I bent the contact pin in a bit, but the metal is well oxidized (but not rusty).
As a 72 (original), the Tele is worth a good amount of money, but only if I wanted to sell it - otherwise, its just another tool, and one I could get better use of it it had better sound options.
If I ever did want to sell it, I'd still have the original pickups and hardware to offer with it. The original pickguard is hanging on my wall (framed), signed by Todd Rundgren along with pictures of both him and me playing our Teles - I've got a black 3-ply on it to make it look like a 52 reissue.
DSC01822.JPG
 
If it's a real 72 and not a reissue, I'd without a doubt restore the original electronics.

Often times when the output is diminished that means the magnets are losing magnetism. They can be recharged and brought back to full output.

Windings don't 'rust'. They are copper. Worst that can happen is the enamel coating can break down and they short out OR a winding breaks. This can be tested with an ohmmeter.

However in your case it sounds like the mags are losing charge.

AFA the pots. They can be cleaned as well. Some take them completely apart.
The jack's corrosion can be taken care of with a pencil eraser or very fine sandpaper. (Like 2000 grit)

Nothing bad about GFS pickups, but no way, no how, would I EVER put them into a vintage guitar.
But thats just me..... :D
 
Yeah, its a real 72 - I bought it new in 72! $289 including the Fender case. I'll put an ohmmeter on them next week, don't want to pull the thing apart again right now
 
I have some GFS alnico overwounds in my strat and they're really quite good.
I also have a set of their tele pickups in my tele and it's an excellent traditional sounding tele.

Both sets sound as good as stock Fender stuff easily.

I can't imagine you'll be disappointed and, personally can't see it being worth the additional expense of trying to fix your bad p'ups .... first, that doesn't always work and second, the GFS stuff will sound about as good.

Do you not know that a 72 Tele with original pickups will be worth a good bit more than a 72 Tele with gfs pickups?
That being said how in the world would fixing the original pickups be seen as "extra expense"?:facepalm:
Fixing the original pickups is an absolute no brainer.
 
Yes, I still have the original neck pickup. If I knew anyone in this area (north of Boston) who could do the work, I'd use them - but the crackling tone and jack problems are unlikely to be 'fixable', having the pickups rebuilt is only part of the problem.
First off I would try to fix any crackling pots. The reason they are crackling is most likely oxidation inside the pots. Spray cleaner in the opening and immediately turn the pot shaft back and forth as quickly as possible. Sometime you have to do this over and over and over again to create a corrosion free contact inside the pot. My guess is you haven't repeated this process enough times to get the desired result. If possible it's best to leave solder joints untouched on a vintage guitar, but the next step would be to reflow the solder joints on the pot and ultimately ....if nothing else works...take the pot apart and clean it that way. If you are not comfortable doing that an electronics geek could do it for you. As far as the jack goes...clean the hell out of it. If the solder joints on the jack are original you may have to reflow the solder there too.
As far as getting the pickup repaired pm me and I will give you contact info on a guy that can do it right.
It's doubtful that you have a demagnitized set of magnets. more than likely their is a break in the wire in the pickup coil. Most of the time it's deep within the coil, due to corrosion, and the pickup would need to be rewound. Sometimes the break will only be a few hundred turns in and a splice can be done and most of the original coil can be saved. Either way you need someone e who is well versed in vintage pickups and will shoot you straight on what repair is in order and will use vintage correct wire in that repair.

A rewind of your original pup would probably run about the same as a gfs replacement....but would enable you to retain the 'original equipment" value of the vintage tele. That's probably easily worth $400 to $600.
Just look online at what an original '72 tele pickup is fetching and you'll see what I mean.
 
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Jimistone- sent you a PM. Ideally, I'd like to find someone local who could do the work, I'd just bring the whole guitar to him. Otherwise, I'll have to desolder the lead pickup, and resolder everything back together when the pickup repairs are done. ANd I am not a particularly good solderer!
Nothing wrong in getting all that done, but while the repair is happening, I don't have the Tele to use.
 
If you're not going to sell the thing any time soon, just yank all the old parts out and stick them in a box. Put the gfs stuff in and rock. When/if you want to sell the thing, then you can worry about getting back to the original. Why the hell anybody would object to that plan (which was I think what you intended to begin with) I just can't even guess.
 
If you're not going to sell the thing any time soon, just yank all the old parts out and stick them in a box. Put the gfs stuff in and rock. When/if you want to sell the thing, then you can worry about getting back to the original. Why the hell anybody would object to that plan (which was I think what you intended to begin with) I just can't even guess.

Well, yeah, I didn't plan on throwing out the old hardware! My original concerns were whether the GFS stuff would sound good!
 
Well, yeah, I didn't plan on throwing out the old hardware! My original concerns were whether the GFS stuff would sound good!
The answer is yes. Whether it'll be exactly what you're looking for might be a question, but...

Just go for it.
 
If you're not going to sell the thing any time soon, just yank all the old parts out and stick them in a box. Put the gfs stuff in and rock. When/if you want to sell the thing, then you can worry about getting back to the original. Why the hell anybody would object to that plan (which was I think what you intended to begin with) I just can't even guess.

There is nothing wrong with that. I did that with my 1966 strat. Only problem was when I moved to another town the box that had my pickups in it dissapeared. The only reason I still have one original is.because I lent it to a friend to try out in his fender mustang guitar.
When parts get taken off a guitar they tend to get misplaced and damaged.
 
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