Monty*s Tele 5 Way Kit

Telecaster 5 Way Switching Drop in Loom

Monty’s 5-way telecaster wiring harness adds two new sounds to your tonal arsenal; in the front position of the 5-way switch, the two pickups are wired together in series, giving an incredibly full, fat-sounding middle position. In the rear position, a small amount of the neck pickup signal is blended with the full signal from the bridge, beefing up the bottom end while keeping all that classic tele twang.

The middle three positions on Monty’s 5-way harness are exactly the same as a normal telecaster 3-way, so you don’t have to worry about losing any of the iconic sounds that we all know and love.

When two pickups are wired together, they are normally wired in parallel, just like a standard telecaster middle position. Parallel wiring is perhaps most simply described as wiring two independent circuits together: the resulting output is essentially the average output of the two pickups.

The front position on Monty’s 5-way telecaster wiring harness wires the pickups together in series. This combines the two pickups into one circuit, a technique most notably used for the middle position on Danelectro guitars. The total output is the combined output of the two pickups, giving an increase in volume and an incredibly warm, fat sound.

The rear position on our telecaster 5-way is another variant on series wiring; as with the front position, the pickups are wired together in series. However, a resistor is used to bleed most of the signal from the neck pickup to ground. This results in a sound that is halfway between standard series wiring and the bridge pickup alone: fat and creamy but with all the bright, punchy articulation you would expect from a Telecaster bridge pickup.

A final slight tweak that we do like to make is our 50's wiring mod. This changes the wiring of the tone cap to resemble that used in a 50's Les Paul. In turn, this affects the interaction between the volume and tone pots, keeping the guitar brighter as you roll down the volume. It's also worth noting that 50's wiring makes a treble bleed largely redundant, so we don't normally recommend pairing the two.

This wiring harnesses is handmade by us using the highest quality components; 250K CTS pots, an Oak Grigsby 5-way super switch, our own Monty's 0.022uf Paper in oil capacitor, vintage-correct pushback wire and a Switchcraft jack. Basically, all the good stuff.

The parts are all American imperial sized, so may not automatically fit on import instruments with metric sized parts without a little modification. If you are unsure, please contact us in advance and we will advise what needs to be done.

This harness is available in both right-handed and left-handed configurations, and with or without a treble bleed.

Instructions for installation are included with the harness, but please be aware that it will involve some soldering. If you aren’t comfortable doing this yourself, please bring your guitar to Monty’s or any other qualified tech; we will be happy to help you install it.