Wiring question

[Lord Summerisle]

I have a Yamaha Pacifica 112v, which has a full-sized humbucker rout at the bridge, like this:

 

 

I want to drop in a Tonerider Rebel 90 humbucker-sized P90: http://www.tonerider.com/rebel-90 The Yamaha neck and middle position single-coils I quite like, so I'm planning on leaving those alone.

 

At the moment, my Pacifica's guts look like this:

 

 

 

 

The tone pot marked with "H" is a push/pull coil splitter for the existing humbucker. The thick black wire coming down from the upper-right hole is from the humbucker, the smaller wire next to it is only the ground wire to the tremolo claw.

 

The Tonerider looks to be a very simple wiring diagram - just a ground to the back of the pot, and a hot wire to the volume pot lug: http://www.tonerider.com/files/rebel-90-wiring.pdf

 

I guess I was hoping to do the installation with as little soldering as possible. The 500k pots on the Pacifica seem nice, the switch is fine, so I was hoping to get away with the fewest electrical changes possible.

 

What is the easiest way to install the Tonerider, do you think?

 

Can I leave the current push/pull tone pot in place, and just ignore its splitting function? Or is it essential to replace that pot because the humbucker will have been replaced with a P90?

 

Is there any reason why I can't just cut the existing humbucker wire and leave a bit inside the cavity, insulating the cut end? That would save me monkeying around with current connection where the neck and middle single coils are soldered to the volume pot along with the humbucker, in one big, existing connection.

 

Thanks to anyone who can advise me on this - very much appreciated.

[StRanger7032]

 

Can I leave the current push/pull tone pot in place, and just ignore its splitting function? Or is it essential to replace that pot because the humbucker will have been replaced with a P90?

 

Is there any reason why I can't just cut the existing humbucker wire and leave a bit inside the cavity, insulating the cut end? That would save me monkeying around with current connection where the neck and middle single coils are soldered to the volume pot along with the humbucker, in one big, existing connection.

 

Thanks to anyone who can advise me on this - very much appreciated.

 

The P-90s that are designed as a direct replacement for humbuckers are fine with a 500K pot. I would do as you said and leave the push/pull pot in place, just not using the split feature. You can certainly cut the humbucker wire close to the solder joint if you don't want to de-solder it. Keep in mind that you will need to ground the metal sheath of the P-90 wire, so it would not really work to connect the positive P-90 wire to the existing wire from the humbucker. If you look at the wiring diagram you linked, the wire needs to sit flat on the back of the pot so you can solder both the ground sheath to the back of the pot and the hot wire to the appropriate terminal.