tone and volume pot problem

[prudd]

greetings from the UK.
can anyone help with my problem?
i have just aquired a 97 levinson blade strat which according to the people at levinson was one of the 1st Texas models.it has the the normal 3 single coils, it has only one tone pot which covers all 3 pups.
With the volume on full, the tone control works fine, but if you back off the volume to anything lower than 10 the tone control does not work at all.
also the volume control doesnt alter the volume until it gets down to about 2, ie it stays at full volume until then, and when the volume does eventually drop the sound gets a bit muddy.
any help would be much appreciated
cheers, Paul

[JohnH]

Hi Prudd - welcome to GN2. I bet your wiring has the same mistake my LP Studio had when I got it a few weeks ago. It had exactly the symptoms you describe, on both sets of its pots and tone controls.

If my guess is right, the hot wire from the 5-way switch is going to the volume pot centre lug, instead of the ungrounded outer lug. With everything else correct, it gave those effects. At 10, it makes no difference, but as you turn down volume, the tone gets seperated from the pups and becomes ineffective, and you dont get much volume drop until the volume is shunting the pups to ground, which loads them, causing mud.

The output to the jack should remain connected to the vol pot centre lug, as Im guessing it does currently.

Its so spookily the same that I bet it is that!

The guy I bought mine off said he had the pups proffesionally rewired. Yeah right! Whatever he paid was too much.

John

[prudd]

thanks JohnH for the reply.
ive been away from home for a few days and have not had the chance to do anything. as soon as I do I will let you know how I got on, thanks again . paul