Loose guitar pickups are an issue that can cause unwanted noise and affect your guitar’s performance.
Is the entire pickup wobbly or just the adjustable pole pieces?
Common causes of loose pickups
- Weak or missing springs: Over time, the springs that provide tension for pickup height adjustment can weaken, or they may have been lost during a previous repair.
- Excessively loosened screws: If you adjust your pickup height frequently, you may have unscrewed the mounting screws too much, causing the pickup to lose tension and wobble.
- Missing or worn foam padding: In guitars that use foam to secure the pickup, the foam can compress or deteriorate over time, leading to a loose fit.
- Missing humbucker mounting ring screws: For guitars with humbuckers, sometimes the small screws holding the pickup ring to the body may come loose.
How to fix a loose pickup
In the Haywire Custom Shop we’ll look at one or more methods to secure them.
1)-Add foam padding
This is a simple, non-invasive fix for pickups that have too much space between the body cavity and the bottom of the pickup.
- Loosen the strings to give yourself room to work.
- Unscrew the pickup and gently lift it out of its cavity.
- Place a small piece of stiff foam underneath the pickup to take up and slack space. Packaging foam, weather stripping, or urethane foam all work well.
- Re-install the pickup and tighten the screws. The foam will apply upward tension to the pickup and hold it firmly in place.
2)-Replace or add springs
Springs provide the tension needed to hold pickups at their desired height. If the existing springs have lost their tension, or if they are missing, you can replace them. Sometimes you may simply pull the spring and stretch it for added tension. It will make the spring stiffer and solve the problem.
- Loosen the strings and remove the pickup. Note the positioning of the original springs.
- Replace the old springs with new, stiffer ones or add a second set. Some guitarists use surgical tubing as an alternative.
- Put the pickup back in and tighten the screws.
3)-Tighten the mounting screws
If the pickup has a mounting ring and is loose, simply tightening the 4 small corner screws that hold the ring to the body may be all that’s needed. Be careful not to overtighten and strip the screws.
Haywire Custom Shop Violator guitar design with gold mounting rings have a screw in each corner to hold pickup firmly.
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