Parker Fly Modification

NOTE: THESE OPERATIONS ARE PERFORMED AT YOUR OWN RISK. DO NOT perform this operation if you are not 100% sure of what you are doing. I do not take any responsibilities for any damage caused.

My Parker guitar is a Parker Fly Classic from circa 1997. Parker might have changed the wiring, so if your Parker looks different, DO NOT PERFORM THIS OPERATION unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing.

This is how I rewired my Parker Fly with a bunch of new switching options:

I added a new switch to coil tap both humbuckers. The reason I did this was because I wanted to be able to use the two full humbuckers together and still have the possibility to use the two-single-coil-“Strat/Tele” in-between combination.

The old switching scheme was like this:

P.U. switch position:
1: Full neck humbucker
2: Neck and bridge single coils together
3: Full bridge humbucker

These are the combinations I am now able to get:

New switch off:

P.U. switch position:
1: Full neck humbucker
2: Both full humbuckers
3: Full bridge humbucker

New switch on:

P.U. switch position:
1: Neck single coil (closest to the neck)
2: Neck and bridge single coils together
3: Bridge single coil (closest to the bridge)

Start by removing the back plate from the guitar. Unscrew the circuit board:

Note where the wires from the pickups enter the control cavity.

As you can see on the above picture, the pickup switch has two functions. The top half is the pickup switching part and the bottom half takes care of the coil tapping in the centre position.

Number the pins like this:
1 – 2 – 3
4 – 5 – 6
7 – 8 – 9
10 -11 -12

You can see that the red and green wire from the neck pickup are both connected to pin 7. The black and white wires from the bridge pickup are connected to pin 12 in a similar fashion. These are the coil tap wires.

You can avoid the centre position coil tapping by just unsoldering these two wire pairs from the switch. The green and red wire from the neck pickup must still be connected TO EACH OTHER and NOTHING ELSE, and the same goes for the black and white wires from the bridge pickup.

If you want to add a switch to coil tap the pickups, take a look at this schematic:

The pins 8, 9, 10 and 11 are connected from the factory and functions as a connection to ground. This we can use as a common connection point for the coil tap wires.

As you can see, the red and green wires from the neck pickup are both connected to the new switch. The same goes for the black and white wires from the bridge pickup. The new switch is then connected to ground (the blue wire). Note that the blue wire is connected to TWO pins on the new switch.

Also note that if you add a switch, like I did, you will need to drill a hole in your guitar (unless you can find a DPDT pull-pot to replace one of the existing pots with). It is very hard to drill a hole in the guitar without cracking the laquer on the front, so take good care.

Enjoy your new Parker sounds!