How To Change The Bridge Pickup Of A Stratocaster

Introduction

A few weeks ago I have decided to change the bridge pickup on my Fender Stratocaster. Like a lot people I found that I didn’t really like the sound of that pickups and that I wanted something that could handle a little more distortion. After shopping a bit online I have found a DiMarzio Chopper pickup that looked pretty cool. So I have ordered that pickup and I have installed it by myself. At first I wanted to take some pictures to make sure that if I had failed something I could look at the original settings. But once I had the camera out I taught that I could share my experience with you.

Changing a pickup is a really easy task and if I have been able to do it properly, anybody can do it. There is an excellent tutorial that was made by Marcus Siepen and I recommend watching it before trying to change your pickups. Even though I liked that tutorial I have decided to make one especially for the Stratocaster since a lot of Stratocaster owner have replaced or want to replace their bridge pickup.

Tools

The first Step you have to do is gather all your equipment I hate starting a job and need to find a tool later on.

For this job you will need to gather a few things around:

Guitar (obviously)
New pickup
Good lightning
Screwdriver and pliers
A soldering iron
Computer (for online reference)
Electric tape
Bucket (to keep all your screw in a safe spot)
Pen and sheet of paper to note the old settings
The picture is my Mojo; this guy is a crazy local guitar player (Jean Leloup)

Removing your pickup

Once everything is done the first step is to take all your strings off. Then right after, you have to remove the pickguard, only take off the screws that are around the pickguard. The six screws around the pickup are set for the height adjustment. In the next picture it is the biggest screws that are made for the pickup adjustment.

Before putting the pickguard upside down, you should put a cloth on your guitar to prevent any scratches. The back of your pickup should look like this.

There are two wires that are connected directly to the pickup. I have followed those to wire and with the soldering iron I just disconnect them.

The yellow wire was easy to take off.

The black one was a little harder since it was connected with other wire. I had to take it away from the other wire.

Once your pickup is disconnected you just have to take off the 2 screws on the front side of the pickguard that are on each side of the pickup. Then you just have to remove the pickup.

Installing the new pickup

Next step is that you have to put the new pickup in. Don’t screw it too much you will set the height at the end. Now you have to connect the wire. They are more than two wires in this pickup but don’t panic, it wont make it harder to install. For this installation, I have followed this plan (found on the DiMarzio website). Be sure that the colors of your wire are going to be the same has on the plan that you are following.

First of all, I cut the black and the grey wire short and I turn them together. After that I just taped them on the back of the pickguard. After that, I had taken the red wire and I have connected it to the pickup selector at the place where the original pickup was connected. For the last step I have connected the blue wire and the green wire together and solder it on the back of the volume knob.

Final result look like this.

Sorry for the bad image quality we can’t see the color properly.

Now you need to put the pickguard back and put your new strings on the guitar.

Now everything should work properly. Once your find that everything is working you can set the height of your pickup.

Enjoy your new Pickup and if you don’t like it you can put your old pickup back.