Has your guitar stopped making any sound? Are you getting some extra buzzing that you weren’t getting before? Have you recently ripped your guitar cable out like a madman?! Well, I’m here to tell you that you might need to install a new output jack!

One of the most common problems that will cause a drop of signal quality, or even a total lack of signal, is a broken output jack. Lucky for you and me (I’ve replaced way too many of these), this is a simple and cheap repair. This is something most local music shops would charge between $40-$50 to do. If you have the tools, you can do it yourself for $5-10!

So today I’m going to teach you how to replace your guitar’s mono output jack.

What you might need:

– Philips Screwdriver

– Soldering Iron

– Solder

– New Output Jack

– Wire Cutters and Stripper (Maybe)

(This process requires basic soldering knowledge. If you don’t have any experience in this I’d recommend reading our article called “Guitar Soldering for Beginners”.)

How to Install a Mono Output Jack:

The first thing to do is to go ahead and remove the jack plate that is holding the jack in place. This is where your handy dandy screwdriver comes into play. Once you have removed the plate, you can pull the jack out a bit to have some room to work.

Make sure you pay attention to how to the wires are connected to the jack. 99.999999% of the time the wires will be color coded. Black is for the “ground”, and the other (usually red) is the “hot” output. If you must, only do one wire at a time so that you don’t mix them up.

Now, if you care to be gentle about things (which you should), you can use your soldering iron to heat up the old solder and remove the old jack. Some of us are impatient animals and just rip the wires off..

This is when we’ll attach the wires to the new jack. If you did not pay attention to the way the jack was originally wired (shame on you), the “ground” wire (black) goes on the inner portion of the jack and the “hot” wire (usually red) goes on the outer portion.

Attach the wires one at a time by stripping a bit of the wiring to expose a small amount of copper at the end. Twist the end of the copper so that it’s not frayed and makes the best possible connection. Place the copper portion of the wire onto it’s designated location on the jack, then solder it in place. You only need a small amount of solder for this.

Voila! You have successfully changed the output jack of a guitar! After soldering, let it sit for about 5-10 minutes to make sure it fully dries and stays together well. Plug it into an amp, and test that bad boy out!

One possible issue you may run into is if your wire accidentally gets detached from the other end you may have to open your control cavity and do some bonus work. Generally speaking, the “hot” wire goes onto a volume pot and the “ground” wires goes to some central grounded area where the pickup grounds also go. If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, the best thing to do in this situation is to refer to your guitar’s wiring diagram or contact the manufacturer for some help.

Hopefully this was helpful! If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out some more. We upload articles, review, guides, and more every day! We have some other How-To Guides as well, such as How to Intonate a Hollow Point Floyd Rose and How to Create a Bass Cut With a Tone Knob.

This article was written by Zac Buras, our editor located in Louisiana.

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