Kiloton 2 Pickup Modification

[5StringPocket]

New poster here. I picked up a used Kiloton 5 with a beautiful 3-tone burst Empress body and Chechen fingerboard. Great neck and I like the solid punch of that MFD bridge pickup but thought it could benefit from the right neck pickup to provide a wider palette of tones. I've been wanting to try a Nordstrand BigRig and thought this bass would be a good candidate so I ordered one with custom spacing to fit as shown.

Kiloton5 & BigRig Pickup Sm.jpg (224.1 KiB) Viewed 305 times

The G&L Kiloton wiring diagram shows passive volume/tone controls with a series/parallel/single coil pickup mode switch. What I'd like to do is replace the existing volume pot with a Noll 250K stacked volume pot, using the 2nd volume pot to tie in the BigRig pickup. Tone would become master tone for both pickups. The wide lower volume knob would control the MFD and the smaller top knob would control BigRig volume. The BigRig pickup will be wired in series as shown in the Nordstrand website with RED/WHT wires soldered and taped, BLK as hot, and GRN/BARE as ground. Diagrams for stock wiring and with the 2 pickup modification are shown below. Will this 2 pickup configuration work as shown? If not, what corrections are needed? Thanks.

G&L kiloton_wiring_diagram.jpg (157.29 KiB) Viewed 305 times

G&L Kiloton5 BigRig Wiring2.png (207.66 KiB) Viewed 305 times

[Ken Baker]

Will this 2 pickup configuration work as shown? If not, what corrections are needed? Thanks.

It should work connected as you've described. Sounds like an interesting project.

Bear in mind that there will be a notable mis-match between the two pickups, but your separate volume controls should mitigate issues with levels.

Ken...

[bigtone23]

Where is the Nordstrand going to be located?
As close to the P or J sweet spot as possible?
Ric neck location?
Other?

[jglunt2112]

I picked up a used Fullerton Kiloton 4 a while back and was blown away by the variety of sounds that G&L gets out of one pickup. And routing a hole in the body of a bass is not a reversible kind of mod. To me, it's kind of like jumping from a cliff into a lake without knowing exactly what's under the water, only you're not as likely to die from the bass mod. But I'm all for somebody making a bass there very own, so God bless your effort. Let us know how it turns out. If it's great, maybe a router is in my future..Jim

[5StringPocket]

The Nordstrand pickup is located at the P-bass sweet spot. I just got a call from the repair tech that all modifications are done and checked. Everything works as it should except that the MFD volume acts like a master volume. You can blend in the BigRig but you can't turn down the MFD and solo the BigRig. I'm baffled as to why because this VVT diagram seems straight forward enough. Any insight to a fix for this would be much appreciated.

BigRig 2-pickup Modification

G&L Kiloton5 BigRig Wiring2.png (207.5 KiB) Viewed 121 times

[Ken Baker]

Standard disclaimer:

I don't have your bass on my bench so anything I type here has the value of what you paid for it; zip.

The wiring looks okay to me except that I'm wondering what that little circular thing is on the far-left pot drawing. Do the obvious stuff, like look for loose connections (yes, I know it was just worked on) and bad/no connections. Especially look at all the connections on the MFD's control.

Ken...

[deltafred]

The only way (that I can see from looking at the diagram) for the bridge pickup volume to act as a master is if the output to the jack socket was taken from the wiper (centre lug) and the wire from the "mode switch" was connected to the "hot" end of the pot (lower lug on the diagram) along with the wire from the bridge pickup pot. (Hope that makes sense.)

As Ken says "I don't have the bass on my bench" so the above is just speculation.

[5StringPocket]

Thanks, I will verify that when I get the bass back. The repair tech told me he is not an electronics whiz and just follows the diagrams given, but at least he did the heavy lifting and installed the new pickup.