Wiring Woes.

[Slylock Fox]

So on fender's website you can find a diagram of a 50's strat wiring with a 5 way switch.

Now, my guitar has a 3 way blade switch found in some older strats, and I was told the wiring is the same for a 3 way as it is for a 5 way. 

Now, I've gone through 2 caps on my tone pot, but it doesn't seem like my 2 tone knobs work at all.

Depending on which pickup I'm on, either tone knob works as a volume instead of a tone and my volume pot works as a volume regardless of what pickup i'm on

I've retraced my steps so many times now, and I'm following fenders wiring to a "T".

I know I'm doing something wrong, I just can't figure it out.



any suggestions?

 

[line6man]

If the tone pots are behaving as volumes, that would usually indicate that the pots are varying the impedance over all frequencies, rather than just the highs. It is unlikely that your capacitors have become leaky or developed internal shorts, but it's very possible for you to have physically shorted them.

Post pics of your control cavity, and the diagram you used.

FWIW, yes, standard 3 and 5 way switches are identical. The difference is that 5 way blades connect the commons to two throws in positions 2 and 4.

 

[Slylock Fox]

of all the wiring diagrams I've used the only thing I've done differently is run the ground from my trem claw and output jack to the bottom tone pot instead of to the top of the volume pot.

It doesn't seem that this would affect anything as there is a ground jumping from each tone pot to the volume.........

 

[drewfx]

What are the values of the caps you are using, and where did you get them?

 

[Slylock Fox]

.047 was the first one I tried, then I changed it out with a generic ceramic disk of .022.

Now today I will be buying an orange drop cap or an oil can at work, so hopefully I can figure this out.

If that doesn't work, I may have to consider changing pots out.

 

[bagman67]

.047 was the first one I tried, then I changed it out with a generic ceramic disk of .022.

Now today I will be buying an orange drop cap or an oil can at work, so hopefully I can figure this out.

If that doesn't work, I may have to consider changing pots out.

The material your capacitors are made of won't make any difference.  Save your money, unless you're after vintage-correctness for its own sake.

 

[drewfx]

With ceramic caps you didn't get from a music store, I would make absolutely sure you didn't misread them and accidentally use ones that are off by a factor 10 or 100.

But my first thought would still be what line6man said - that the pot side of the cap may be shorting to ground (bypassing the cap, so that everything goes to ground instead of just the highs), particularly if you have shielding foil/tape/paint in the cavity or bare ground wires running around. To troubleshoot this, try disconnecting just the ground side of the cap and taping it off (but leaving everything in place), in which case the tones should now do absolutely nothing. If they are still acting as volumes, it's definitely either a short or you're following a terribly wrong diagram.