TAOT Wiring Kit for Fender Strat - .022 Cap - Stratocaster

This kit came with everything needed to get my strat back in tip top shape! Mine had CTS pots Switchcraft selector and input jack and cloth covered tinned wiring. They will definitely be my go to from now on for upgraded guts for my guitars.

These parts are perfect, no problems / no issues, will buy again.

The tone of my Squire 70' Vintage Modified strat was great to beginning with, so much so that I've put off plans to buy a true American Fender strat. Since I will be keeping this pretty amazing Squire I thought I would upgrade the small pots with this kit. I was not expecting much of a change in the tone, but after installing the entire kit (cap, pots, switch, and new wires), there was a noticeable change to the tone. Tone is subjective, but the new sound seems fuller and better balanced - I really like it! The switch doesn't feel a lot more precise or "better" than what was on the guitar, and the pots themselves don't necessarily "feel" any different (the one's installed worked smoothly), but I definitely hear an improved tone. Is it the Orange drop cap, the CTS pots or the better wiring, or all of the above? I don't know, but I am very happy I installed this kit and highly recommend it for Squires, even the higher end Deluxe and VM squires - that already have significantly improvement tone over the Affinity and Bullet models.The included wiring directions are identical to those from the Seymour Duncan site, so I know they are accurate. One interesting note is that the SD wiring plan is different than what was in the guitar (the cap placement was different). I assumed the wiring would be the same so I didn't really pay attention to what the tone knobs controlled before I started removing parts. The tone knobs now control the mid and bridge PUPs and I "think" they used to control the neck and bridge, but I might be wrong. If you install this kit, pay attention to what your tone knobs control now in case the wiring change affects what you're used to. In any case, the wiring instructions are how Fender Strats are wired, so I'm fine with it for now. I might experiment in the future - there are a lot of different ways to wire a strat.When all was said and done, I was left with about 8" pf black wire and about 4" of white wire. I did not have to enlarge the cavities in the guitar to accommodate the noticeably larger CTS pots . That may or may not be true for the lower end Squires.Lastly, If you are not comfortable soldering or don't know how to solder bunches of ground wires to the back of a pot without ruining the pot, I recommend buying a pre-wired kit or spend some time on YouTube on how to solder guitar components - there are several good videos with important tips. Also, if you hear buzzing sound from your amp after wiring it up, you very likely switched the ground and hot wires to the 1/4" plug. The new plug is, BTW, noticeably better than the original.

I'm no stranger to doing electronics on my own guitars. I've been playing with a soldering iron for the last 16 years now. This was pretty straight forward. The wiring diagram included explains things well and will get you started. I wired mine up with an HSS setup with the 2nd position being set to auto-split the bridge humbucker. I know folks say 250K pots are too dark for humbuckers, but being that mine isn't seeing a tone control the 250k is fine (in a standard 1 vol, 1 tone per humbucker setup, with 2 500k pots the pickup sees 250k anyway). The pots have a good taper and feel smooth to roll. The switch is excellent. No issues. The switch tip itself wasn't long enough to go on the switch but my existing switch tip fit perfectly. They give you a nice amount of cloth wire. It looks nice and vintage correct. Quality wire too and pre tinned. I had extra. The jack is also quality. For the money, you get some great components. My MIM Strat has had the same electronics for 20+ years. This brought it back to life.

Everything in this kit is beautiful. The wires... so nice! The capacitor... so capacious! The potentiometers... such potential! Even the wiring diagram was pretty easy to follow. There was plenty of wire to spare (as long as you follow the instructions and wire the cap directly to the pots; it has extra-long legs so this wasn't too hard). The push-back insulation takes a little getting used to, but it feels like a million bucks--and it's a lot easier and more forgiving than plastic. And the wire itself--wow! Modern stranded wire has to be stripped just so, and then treated with great care to prevent it going frizzy like a bad 80's perm. This stuff is braided and tinned all the way through, so it's a dream to cut and solder. Not to mention that the cloth insulation just looks bitchin'. Too bad I'm the only one that will ever see it. :-)One star off, though, for the 5-way switch. The switch itself was fine, but the white plastic switch cover was totally wrong. It just didn't fit! Not sure if this was just a mistake or if it's supposed to be this way, but I had to ream out the switch cover to make it fit. WTF?

This is a great upgrade for anyone with a non-USA Stratocaster. My MIM Strat just never had the sparkle that should even after a pickup upgrade. This kit fixed that and I now have all the bell like sparkle I'd been missing before. You do have to get new knobs though because the CTS pots have a larger shaft than Alfa pots. I ordered this kit because it has all of the best components and for a price that is better than the Stew Mac kit. It even had the value of orange drop cap that I wanted (.022). The vintage push back wire is so much easier to work with than modern cheep wire found on most new guitars. There's plenty of wire to do the job. Wiring this kit was easy. The wiring diagram that is included is the typical Stratocaster schematic and will work fine. However Fender has ground loops in the original wiring that contribute to 60 cycle hum and other noise. To cure that I recommend using the wiring scheme found at [...]. It's a better way to wire it up.The seller was great and I had the kit in just 3 days after ordering. This is best and cheapest upgrade I've ever made to a guitar. I highly recommend it.