The below guide demonstrates how to install our 6 way Telecaster harness using the Free-Way 3B3-01 blade switch. This kit offers all possible switching options on a Telecaster with two pickups including series, parallel and out of phase combinations.
This kit does require some minor modification to your neck pickup, assuming it has a metal cover.
Remove the harness from it's template and load into your control plate. Firstly, we need to ensure our circuit is grounded properly.
Depending on your Telecaster model, they are generally grounded via a ground wire that sits under the bridge and get's trapped when the bridge is flat onto the body.
Some models will be grounded via the pickup itself which is connected to the bridge screws. If in doubt, check with us.
Solder the other end of this ground wire to the top of the volume pot casing. The bridge pickup itself also gets grounded here.
Next, we need to separate the neck pickup cover ground from the coil wire (ground). In our setup, we are sending the pickup ground to the switch. If we do not separate the cover (which gets soldered to ground) then we have a permanent connection to ground. Metal work (ie. the cover) that is not grounded acts like antennae when "in-series" selection is on, picking up hum and noise.
To do this, follow the below photos. The neck pickup cover is normally connected to the coil start wire. You need to remove this connection and then add a seperate ground wire to the cover.
Solder the end of the new ground wire added to the pickup cover to ground, on top of the volume pot.
Finally, hook up the pickups.
For the neck pickup, solder these to terminals "NH" (neck hot) and "NG" (neck ground) respectively
The bridge pickup hot wire goes to terminal "BH".
