Step by step guide to switching pickups?

[PhilKing]

I was meaning the lugs on the switch.  You need to switch between the hot and the tap before taking it to the volume control.

[Madiac]

Geez, i have no idea what you mean, feel like a retard almost haha, especially after making such a mess in the wire cavity, cr@p. Ok, lets do it like this, the black+bare are grounded on the volume pots, what do i do with the white and red now. Im really sorry, im just so confused!

[PhilKing]

To get it working without the tap (so you can check it out), you can connect the white wire to the volume pot where the other pickup was connected.  I am assuming the coil tap for the old pickups used either a push-pull pot or a switch.  Either way there are probably 6 tags on the switch, in 2 rows of 3.  If you take one side, either - it doesn't matter, and connect a wire from the volume pot where the pickup connected to the middle tag, and then connect the red and white wires to the other 2 tags, you will have the coil tap working.  If it is a push/pull switch they might be the wrong way round, but you can easily fix that by swapping the white and red wires.

[Madiac]

Gah, i still feel stupid because i dont get what your saying, i think id have managed this with 2 conductor wiring, but im not sure ill be able to fix this! What does "hot" mean? If a wire is "hot" where does it go, if a wire is "tap" ? The note i have from Tim says red = Tap  white = Hot, the other two are grounding. I dont wanna give it to a tech when ive came this far, to late for that. Ill upload some pictures... from what your saying it sounds like i need to put in some extra wire or rewire other cables than the ones from the pickup.
If someone could draw in paint for me on these pictures id be really grateful, really sorry for taking this task on my own when i messed it up-.-
heres how it looks now. My neck pickup is only connected to the grounds as youll see and the red and white are lose because of confusion!:)
http://s50.photobucket.com/albums/f343/Piriripak/
The ones that are not named MQ are the original humbuckers. Thanks again, hope i can solve this mess by tomorrow.
EDIT: Sorry, couldnt get all pictures in the post, so hope its ok if you click the link instead to my photobucket album;) Thanks.

[PhilKing]

I modified a Seymour Duncan diagram.  I hope it helps.

[Madiac]

Ok, thanks i see what you mean, but i dont have any extra wires... is there no way to get coil-tap with the existing wiring? I have push/pulls tone knobs, so should the the red or white be the upper? Thanks for the help. Could you look at the pictures at my link? There is a white cable that goes from the side of each push pull that goes two the two bended together bottom lugs (on the rows of three and looking from the view when im soldering). I thought i had it for a while until i noticed the yellow wire you drew (the one to the volume), but im not sure how i should get such a wire. Do i really need to get a new wire and put it from the volume to the middle lug? I feel like a pain to bother you phil, your really helpful, im just a bit slow to get this right. As i said the tone knobs are push-pulls, so now you know. Just feels strange that id need to rewire other things than the pickups when the coil-SPLIT worked as it was wired (see the pics on the link on my earlier post). So to clear this up, i have two push pull tone knobs, one push/pull tone for the neck and one for the bridge. Normal 3 way switch for pickups, and 2 volume knobs. Originally the guitar was wired for two coil-split humbuckers (the SG GTs come with coil-tap from factory). As you see in the pictures, the two bottom pin/lugs (on the rows of three) are bended together and soldered to a white wire if i remember right. Im getting so frustrated that i start regretting getting p90s, should have made it simple and just got splittable buckers and wired them just the same :x

[PhilKing]

The problem is that on humbuckers you are doing coil split, which is taking one coil out of the connections.  There are 2 ways to do this, one shorts the coil you don't want to earth (ground), the other takes the wires to the coil out of the wiring.  With the P-90 you are doing coil tap, this involves adding a wire part way into the wind to give you less output from the pickup.  The wiring for both is very different.

The easiest way is to remove all the wires from the switch you are going to use for the coil tap (including the bridging wire).  Once you've done that you should have some pieces of wire, one should be long enough to reach the volume pot.  Take this wire from the volume pot to the middle tab, and put your red and white to the outer tabs (I think the opposite way to the way they are in the diagram[red top, white bottom]). 

I tried looking at the wiring pics today (I couldn't access them from work yesterday), but they are hard to see the details.  If I was wiring it I would remove everything (especially the treble bleeds on the volume), and wire a basic circuit with the tap in it (however I have probably wired up more than two hundred guitars in the last 40 years!). 

Just remember that you can wire it without the coil tap by putting the white to the volume control and taping off the red, and not using a switch.

[Madiac]

cr@p. This feels way to much. I feel so frustrated, when i was ordering the MQ i first asked if it would work, and people said yes, but i guess i never asked if it would be this difficult:/ should just have ordered a pair of Warpigs, and i could have exchanged them if i hadnt ordered a Pig 90 which are custom ordered, Tim warned me that this would make an exchange impossible, but gah, i dont feel capable of rewiring that much, i wont know what the heck im doing.. and having gone this far on my own im not gonna turn it in and pay probably 90 bucks to get them wired..
Phil, i can always get you better pics if you tell me what you need pictures of, im grateful that you gave me this much advice... Im almost at the point of selling them and ordering a new pair of humbuckers instead...
There are three wires from the neck push/pull, one white that goes from the bottom two tabs (the bended together ones) that goes from there to inside the pot itself as i see it, but further down at the circular parts side. Then theres a yellow one going from somewhere inside the push/pulls backside, doesnt look like its soldered, which goes on to the top of the volume pots (where the pups are grounded) and one last brown that goes to some intersection that has one of those brown round things and those tube looking things (as you notice i dont know this stuff)... is there no other way to do this? I dont know the effects of removing those wires... when i took on this task i thought it was simply wiring it exactly like my old pups since thats what people gave me the image of, but i dont wanna make it sound like i blame anyone else, im just in a bad mood since i cant get my only guitar working properly.

[Will]

Probably not what you want to hear, but if you feel its too much, a tech is the best bet. It will look clean as hell, and the chances are that the joints will be of better quality too.

Good luck though, you will be happy soon!

[Madiac]

Yep, swallowing my pride  :shock:
turning it in as soon as possible (this evening). It feels like i already destroyed the electronics, for some reason i tried putting the red wire above the white wire (above lug on same row), so that white was in middle red on top, and well could only hear buzzing. So im hoping everythings fine.

[Madiac]

Ok, its turned in. Im prolly not getting it back until thurs/fri next week. Its in good hands i think, a pretty famous guy, Paul Guy, brittish/swedish guy with 40+ years of experience;) Said hed try to clean up the messy wiring too.