Support / Gibson, Epiphone, Guild, Hagstrom, Ibanez, Gretsch, Hofner & Aria Pro II Hollowbody Guitars Wiring Diagram & Fitting Instructions

2 x Humbuckers / P90’s, 2 x Volume, 2 x Tone and a 3 Way Toggle Switch

Fitting Instructions

Two types of Hollowbody Wiring Harness layouts

The Switch is mounted with the pots normally about 48mm away.
The Switch is “Horn Mounted” and can be in the Treble horn or the Rhythm horn on the other side of the pickups.

If you have a horn mounted switch you may need to solder it to the harness after you have threaded it into position, especially on a Rhythm mounted horn. Sometimes you can thread the switch into position via the body or the neck pickup mounting hole while already soldered to the harness, it just depends on the guitar and its framework construction.

Removal

Find somewhere safe, dry and secure to place your Hollowbody guitar while you work on it.
Undo the screws that hold the scratch plate to the body (if your guitar has one)
If you are not changing the pickups, although this will be the time to do it if you are, you can leave the strings on, which will make testing easy later.
Undo the nut for the jack socket
Remove the control knobs x 4 and the switch cap
Remove the 4 x pot nuts and washers and the nut for the switch
You now need to bring what is inside to the outside. Its best to put a protective cloth to stop the guitar surface getting scratched

Replacement

Working on the now external old harness, cut the 1 x pickup ground wire from the bridge at the pot
Cut the pickup wires leaving the wires as long as possible.
You should now be able to remove the harness away from the guitar.
At this point you may want to clean pot holes from where the old pots have been.
You will need to check the size of the holes for the pots as on some guitars they are drilled small for cheap electrical components. If they are small, the best way to enlarge them to 10mm to fit CTS pots, is to use a round file.
You are now ready fit the new harness.
From here everything is in reverse using the wiring diagram below.
Place the new harness on top of the guitar
Solder the 1 x ground bridge wire to the back of the new tone pot (refer to wiring diagram)
Solder the 2 pickup wires to the new pots (refer to wiring diagram).
Once this is done, you should test to make sure everything is working. Simply plug into an amp and strum a string.
You will now need to thread everything back into the guitar to the correct holes. Start with the jack socket, you may need a bit of fishing line to help you feed the jack into place, now everything else will follow. Take you time with this part so you don’t damage any of the components.
Re-fit the control knobs and the switch cap.
Fit the pickguard back into place and you are ready to go