These same steps apply to the Blues Deluxe/Deville

DISCLAIMER: You should have a good working knowledge of electronics

safety. If you don't PLEASE take it to a tech! By proceeding you agree that I
take no responsibility for any damage done to yourself or your amp.
Printer Friendly version (text only)

Why They Break

As you may have heard, the stock jacks are notoriously unreliable. Safety regulations
require Fender to use plastic jacks because of the way the jacks ground to the chassis. If
Fender wants to sell Hot Rod Deluxes all over the world they must use these jacks,
because some country's electrical safety laws are more strict than the United States'.
Unfortunately, these jacks can be damaged when owners try to walk 20 feet with a 10
foot guitar cable! (We've all done it! :P) Over time this stresses out the jack, and
eventually the inner pieces begin losing their solid connection to the printed circuit board
(PCB). Sooner or later you'll find the jacks are cutting in and out, or not working at all.
You can help prevent this is by wrapping your guitar cable under the amp's carrying
handle. This way if you can't reach your beer the pull will be absorbed by the handle and
not the jacks.
On Hot Rod amplifiers made from 2004 on, Fender has replaced the input jacks with
better jacks, though they're still plastic. The new jacks are apparently more rugged, and
an answer to the many concerns from owners. The effects loop still uses the older jacks
though, as the "traffic" there isn't as bad as with the guitar inputs. Remember, wrapping
your guitar cable around the carrying handle will help protect the jacks.
I've noticed that Torres is now offering a "kit" for replacing the Hot Rod's jacks, though
you'll fork over three times as much as you'll need to if you order it. Order the parts
directly from Mouser, and follow the FREE directions here, as I'm not interested in
making big profits off of anyone. My directions were up at least a year and a half before
Torres ever made his "kit" available. I done it first, I done it best.
Only replace the stock jacks if they're disfunctional. In other words: "If it ain't broke,
don't fix it!" Countless times my Hot Rod was working fine, and I just had to "fix"
something until it was broke. Save yourself the hassle. Also, if you're clueless about
electronics a qualified tech will gladly do this for you. The job isn't hard, is not
destructive, and any mistakes can be fixed, but electronics experience will definately
make this easier. I'm sure you're ready to get started, so here we go..

1.

The first step is to acquire the correct replacement part(s). I personally recommend
using Switchcrafts, as they're the same high quality jacks Leo used in his greatest amps.
To get the correct part just go to Mouser Electronics, the correct part # is 502-12A.
Insulating washers are also recommended to prevent ground loops, which can cause
unnecessary noisealso found at Mouser; part # 502-S-1029 is for the shoulder washer,
and part # 502-S-1028 is for the outer washer. (See diagram below.) I'd get between one
and four of each, as the FX loop's preamp out and footswitch jacks can be replaced in the
same manner as both input jacks. (Unfortunately, the poweramp in can NOT be replaced
with these same parts.)
The stock jacks are plastic, therefore they do not
conduct electricity. Since the stock jacks do not
conduct electricity they are not grounded directly
to the chassis. For Fender to sell their amps all
over the world, the stock jacks must be grounded
to the chassis in a certain way. If you mount the
Switchcrafts directly to the chassis, which are
metal, they will be grounded directly to the
chassis. I have heard of cases where this could
cause ground loops, or an increase in noise.
Preferably, for the amp to be really quiet, there
should be a "ground bus" with the circuit
According to Switchcraft's website, S-1029 is the
grounding to the chassis in one spot. Failing to
insulating shoulder washer, and S-1028 is the
isolate the metal jacks from the chassis destroys insulating washer.
the purpose of a ground bus because the circuit would be grounded to the chassis in
multiple spots. An insulating washer is a nonconductive washer that isolates the metal
jack from the chassis, and therefore forces it to ground through the "ground bus."
If you're in a pinch you can always run down to Radioshack and buy a bag of two cheap
Chinese jacks. These will cost you about US$3.50 a bag. What complicates this tutorial is
that Switchcraft and Radioshack jacks are designed slightly different, therefore
installation will also be slightly different. Furthermore you can use either closed-circuit
or open-circuit jacks! I'll divulge further into this later.
You'll also need some wire. Due to the low current from the guitar's pickups, any 22 or
20 guage wire will work great, and is readily available from many sourcesincluding
Radioshack. It is preferrable to use "stranded" wire due to its flexibility.

2.

WARNING: We must always drain the filter caps before working on the inside
of an amp. Fully charged caps can kill! Click here to learn how to drain them.
Remove the chicken head knobs, nuts, and washers.
Remove back of amp.

3. Remove the green ground wire near the input jacks.

This will make accessing the bottom of the PCB much

easier. Just be sure it's screwed back into the chassis before you turn the amp on, or you
won't hear your guitar. We're going to have to take the PCB partially out of the chassis so
that we can get underneath it. To do this there are six black screws we must remove that
hold the PCB in. Look for them. It's not "easy" getting the PCB out, but be patient and
push it back softly yet firmly, it will come out. Be careful. If you have to remove any
other wires (as you do in the Blues Deluxe/Deville) be sure to write down where they
went, or take a photograph with a digital camera.

4. Once we're under the PCB and viewing the plastic

jacks, there are four metal connectors, which I'll refer to as
"lugs," covered with solder that must be unsoldered. These
are circled red in the photo to the right. If you don't have a
solder removing device you'll have to heat each lug and
quickly pull on the jack. This may take a little bit of
patience as solder tends to cool quickly. Just be persistant.
Now that we've removed a plastic jack, look at the bottom of it.
Four lugs should be coming out of holes on the bottom. These
lugs should have numbers above them. In this case they should be
1, 4, 5, and 2. NOTE: To get a better view, click the picture to the
right to enlarge it.

5. After deciding which brand of jack to use (Switchcraft or

Radioshack), we must now decide which type of jack we're going to use. The most ideal
type is a closed-circuit mono jackalso called a "shorting jack." (The Switchcrafts from
Mouser are this type.) It has three lugs and physically performs the same action as the
plastic jack we're replacing. Logically, we can assume the plastic jack is also "closedcircuit."
The other option is to use an open-circuit mono jack, which also works but slightly
changes the circuit. When one input is normally used two 68K resistors are placed in
parallel, and the total input resistance is 34K. With an open-circuit jack more signal
will be attenuated as the resistance will be 68K for each input. I prefer the closedcircuit jacks because it stays true to the classic Fender design. On the other hand, the
open-circuit jack is simplier and a little easier to work with.
To the right is an example of both jacks (Switchcrafts are not
included)compared to the plastic jack. You can enlarge the
picture by clicking on it. I'm sure you're now wondering, "Waiting
a minute, the plastic jack has an extra lug called "5", why aren't we
hooking it up? We don't need to. We'll discuss that more in a little bit.
Important info for Switchcraft users: The positioning of the lugs on the Switchcraft
and the Radioshack jacks are NOT the same. The Switchcraft's "2" and "4" lugs are

backwards when compared to the Radioshack's lugs. In other words, the lug that's marked
"2" in the above right picture is actually "4" on the Switchcraft jacks. Also, the lug that's
marked "4" in the same picture is actually "2" on the Switchcrafts. Obviously, the only
lug that's positioned similarly for both the Switchcraft and the Radioshack jacks is "1".
(Thanks fiestared.) I now use Switchcrafts, but I've only taken pictures of the Radioshack
jacks. If you're confused and need help, e-mail me.

6. If you're going to do this, you need to first feel confident.

And the only way that's going to happen is if you understand
the parts you're replacing.

"1" is the ground lug, so it should be obvious that it's

connected straight to ground. Most of the noise and
interference that your guitar picks up is sent there.
Electricity is always trying to find its way to the
ground, and will go the easiest path it can find to get
there.
"2" is the signal lugor the lug that your guitar's signal
is transported through. If that's not hooked up, then the
amplifier won't "hear" your guitar.
"4" is the shorting lug. For input #1 it's connected
straight to ground. For input #2 it's soldered to lug "2"
on input #1; sometimes this is connected to ground, other times it is notit
depends on whether input #1 is also being used. Basically, if a guitar cable is not
plugged into the jack, "4" automatically shorts to the 'signal lug.' Usually it shorts
it to ground, but not alwaysas I mentioned. This is helpful for minimizing all
types of electromagnetic interference.
"5" is there because of the way the plastic jack is designed. If you look at the
circuit board you can see that "5" is located at a dead endit runs straight into
"2". Therefore, we don't need to hook it up. You don't have to worry about it,
period. It's not even included on the schematic! If you pop the clear plastic top off
of the old jack you can get a better idea of how it works.

7a. If you're using a closed-circuit mono

jack, keep reading. If not, skip this step.
Solder a wire from your new jack's ground lug to
where "1" used to be. (Pictured: black wire) This
was also the ground on the old jack. Solder a wire
from the jack's signal lug to where "2" used to be.
(Pictured: red wire) Since the closed-circuit has
an extra lug you're going to have to do something
with it right? If you didn't use it, it'd function the
same as a regular open-circuit jack. Connect the
extra lug to where "4" used to be on either jacks.
NOTE: If you're replacing Input 1 you can just
place a jumper between the extra lug and the
ground lug. (Pictured: green wire, don't mistake
it with the OTHER green ground wire in the
background.)
There was enough solder in the hole where "4"
used to be, after I removed the removed the
plastic jack. I think this is important because it
makes sure the current path is continuous (i.e.
there's no broken connections). If there wasn't
enough solder there, then just hook the wire
straight into the hole and solder it. Unfortunately,
you can not do the same jumper (green wire) for
Input 2it will change the original circuit. Look
at Input 2 on the schematic, "4" is not connected
straight to ground, it is connected to lug #2 of
input 1. If you connect it to ground it will alter
the circuit, and we're just trying to replace the
broken jack.

Input 1: Here we can clearly see the

green jumper wire between shorting
lug and ground lug. If we look in the
background of the first picture, we
can see where I didn't unscrew the
ground wire (long green wire) and it
broke while I was soldering. DOH!
That's something else you should do.
I'll have to resolder it back into place
before I do testing later.

Input 1 was installed upside down,

which accidently caused an annoying
short.

I installed jack #1 wrong as you can see in the

photos. It's upside-down, jack #2 is correctly
placed. You see, if the metal arm is on top you
may end up pushing down on it too hard (to get
the jack into the chassis's hole). I did this and
accidently bended the arm and created a short to
ground. (Even when a guitar cable was plugged
in, the little arm was still touching the big arm.) Here's a little diagram/schematic of the closedcircuit (sometimes called a "shorting jack").
We obviously don't want that because our guitar's Hopefully it'll help you better understand how it
works.
signal would go straight to ground instead of
being amplified! Result: You couldn't use the amp because it wouldn't amplify! It can't
amplify a signal that isn't there. You don't need the same problem; install the jack with

the arms sitting toward the PCB. It'll save you the headache of unscrewing the jack and
rebending the arm.

7b. I don't recommend using an open-circuit mono

jack, but if you areread this.
Now that you have your jack, solder a wire from the mono
jack's ground to where "1" used to be. (Pictured: black
wire) This was also the ground on the old jack. Solder a
wire from the jack's signal lug to where "2" used to be.
(Pictured: red wire) Just make sure the circuit wasn't
broken when you removed "4"the thicker line. This is part of the ground circuit and
you don't want to break it, or you'll have to run a jumper. That's it. In this case the holes
where 4 and 5 were don't need to be hooked up. They are just there for a little closedcircuit "fanciness." Just remember that the circuit is altered and will react differently
when you have two guitar cablesone plugged into each input. It's rather hard to screw
up an open-circuit jackbasically the only thing you can do wrong is mix up the signal
and ground lugs.

8. If we have a multimeter, we can easily test the jacks to make sure they work properly
before ever powering up the amp. (Thanks to nonsqtr for bringing this to my attention.)
Put a guitar cable into each input, but don't plug the other endswhich would normally
be plugged into a guitarinto anything. With your multimeter, measure the resistance
between the two jacks by placing your multimeter's probes onto the tip of the "male" ends
(pictured below). The reading should be somewhere around 136K. It doesn't have to be
perfect, 129K to 142K is finebut 1.14M isn't! You'd have to have your signal lug
(#2) and shorting lug (#4) mixed up on Input 1 to get that reading. If we observe the line
on the schematic that is highlight in red, we can see why we get 136K. Electricity
always travels the path of least resistance; it has to travel between two 68K resistors to
get from one signal lug to the other. 68K + 68K = 136K

9. Be sure the green ground wire is screwed back into the chassis if you've removed it.
Now we'll need to test the jack(s) which we've replaced to
make sure they're installed correctly. I designed the table
below, which flows from left to right, to help you figure out
what each reading should be. If you've replaced Input 1, then
I recommend testing all possible answers (there are four of
them) for Input 1. If you've replaced both jacks, then I'd do all eight possible readings and
make sure they're accurate. Place the multimeter's probe on the "tip" of the guitar cable,
and place the other multimeter's probe at "chassis ground"which can be anywhere on
the metal chassis enclosure. Measure the resistance (), which should be close to 1.0M,
shorthand for 1,000,000. Now take the multimeter's probe (that's on male 1/4" tip) and
move it down so that it touches the side of the "male" inputcorrectly called the
"sleeve." This is the round metal tube-like part which absorbs any noise and grounds it.
The reading should indicate a DIRECT connection to ground. Theoretically, resistance
should be zero ohms; but since nothing conducts perfectly expect to read 5 ohms or less
on the multimeter. If you didn't get these numbers, then you did something wrong! What?
You hooked the lugs up backward?

Which Input? Cable in OTHER jack too? What are you testing? Approx Resistance
NO
Input 1
YES
NO
Input 2
YES

Tip to Ground

1.0 M

Sleeve to Ground

0-5

Tip to Ground

1.0 M

Sleeve to Ground

0-5

Tip to Ground

136 K*

Sleeve to Ground

0-5

Tip to Ground

1.136 M

Sleeve to Ground

0-5

Here is a pictured example of the first reading on the chart: 0.98M is "close enough" to 1.0M.

10. Don't forget to use insulating washers if you've ordered them. If your readings are
all okay, then screw everything back into place. It should work! If not, and you can't
figure out why, hit the "E-mail Me" link in the menu and I'll try to help you. Now that
wasn't as hard as it looked, was it? A lot of text for some pretty easy work. If this was
your first "amp experience" hopefully this has given you enough confidence to try some
other mods or fixes. Enjoy your new success!

The finished form!

By Justin Holton