Monday, May 11, 2020

1992 Jackson Professional Series Dinky LT Revisited

The last time I'd seen this rock machine was way back in 2017, when it was sent in for a major overhaul. I remember having to do lots of woodwork, de-rusting, de-griming and de-crudding. The electronics were working as they should, however. You can read about that experience HERE.

This time, however, the electronics were toast. They were totally rusty and beyond redemption. As I've mentioned numerous times in the past, the salty sea air of the East Coast is not to be taken lightly. It corrodes your hardware, strings and electronics in the blink of an eye. Okay, end of sermon.

To compound the issue, the Seymour Duncan bridge humbucker was virtually dead. Opening it up revealed a faulty connection. Thank goodness it wasn't a shorted coil. Yes, I knew I had to fix this. Before proceeding, I took into account the fact that the owner wasn't interested in coil-splitting; and the existing pickup wires (black/red/white/green) had become extremely brittle over time.

The most practical option was to permanently rewire both coils in series, and replace the unreliable four-wire pickup lead with Alpha coaxial cable. Clean and simple: One hot wire, one braided ground/shield; just like the humbuckers of old. And yes, Seymour Duncan did rejoin the land of the living after this mod.

The old electronics were dumped, and in went Alpha A500K pots, a generic PCB 5-way switch, K73-16 0.022uF tone cap; and NYS229 output jack. I also had to replace the existing three knobs as they were for 24-spline CTS pots; and would not fit the new Alpha pots (18-splines). That being done, the 1992 Jackson Professional Series Dinky LT was back in business.







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