So I bravely yanked out the old stock wiring harness on my 5120, feeling pretty confident that I could install the beefy new one without a problem.

I decided to go with the dental floss method, but once I had the new harness inside the guitar, dental floss tied securely and ready to pull every loose end into place, I quickly realized, "hey! this is a big tangled-up mess." I could not pull one strand of floss without getting tangled with every other strand.

SO, I am looking for advice. Is there a better way to do this? How do I keep everything from tangling up inside the guitar? Should I start with the switch and master, and then move down from one end to the other? Or start with the ground wire, and move in the opposite direction? Or ... what?

I guess my main problem is that, once inside the body, the harness wants to tangle up on itself. And so, I am looking for advice from you old-timers on how to keep things straight -- tools, techniques, magic spells, what-have-you.

Thanks guys and girls. Yinz are the best.

The only time I did a pup/pot swap I've been kluging with wires and pliers. It wasn't pretty an took me hour of frustrated painstaking retrying.

Only after I had it all done, some wiseguy commented I should've uses silicone tubing on the pot shafts and pull them through the holes with those tubes.(I mean the stuff commonly uses in fish tanks).

I guess I should've been wiser and ask before divin into the project head-first.;)

Tubing is the only way to go.

Tubes. Got it.

Now, is there a best methodology with which to approach it? Start at one end or the other, start with the ground wire, start with the switch, etc?

I guess I'd start with the parts that are hardest to reach. Less clutter to get in the way like that.

effff the tubing your doing fine, you just need to only start with one part inside the guitar at once. make sure you drape something over the top so you dont drag all your pots and pups across it.

But I would start up in the horns and then fish everything down into the lower bout. to get it out of the way and tie up the lower bout pots through the f-holes instead of everything through the pup hole. just put everything in except the pups, and the 2 horn controls mst and 3-way, or mudswitch and 3-way and mstr. what have you.

Hey Snotbubble,

this TV Jones Video is very helpfull:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p29QN4ycHMU

there is a 2. Part on youtube also.


Matt

Tubes. Got it.

Now, is there a best methodology with which to approach it? Start at one end or the other, start with the ground wire, start with the switch, etc?

Also, I redid my ground, and personally I made mine long enough that it could be the last thing I did, and the ground just stays in the guitar. haha. the "tether" so to speak.

Thanks guys. Time to try, try again.

+1 on tubing, or if you have one handy, a wire grabber works well on pot shafts too.

I'd do the knobs & jack first, and then tackle the switch.