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1953 Valco El Grande Steel Guitar Customer's Work Progress Reports ~ Page 18;  Pickup Re-repair ~

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THE GODS ARE WITH US:  I casually decided to clean up the uneven top edges of the holes in the coils that are provided as tunnels / tubes for the string sensing screws (not the highest quality of materials in old pickups).  OK, now I'll take a look down inside those hole tubes and see if there's anything in there that might need attention.  The holes / tubes were designed with a loose / liberal margin for the string sensing screws so that lining everything up with them at the factory didn't require exacting precision between the several parts involved.  The sleeves / tubes were part of the pickup to protect the coils from the screws.  But old-timers from old guitar factories have said that the industry didn't expect their instruments to still be around and endeared 55 years later;  so 50 years of use, disassembly / reassembly and repair over a 50 year life time wasn't taken into serious account when they selected the materials to use ....such as these tubes that appear to be a thin plastic. Well, the tubes held off the string sensing screws threads for most of that 55 years of being ran in and out in the different string gauges adjustments that became common with different tunings string gauges over the years;  BUT looking inside the tubes with a magnifying glass revealed allot of thread wear up against the tubes, and in one tiny spot the threads had cut through the plastic and made contact with a coil wire shimmering in the light of the magnifying glass;  And other thread marks weren't very far behind cutting through the tubes also.

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What to do ... what to do ... what to do??? Time to put on the BIG coned thinking cap:

Clipping the pickup and wires out of the harness while leaving a couple of inches of the wires to reconnect to rather than having to desolder and resolder the pots;  Not only for efficiency but to minimize soldering heat put onto the pots.

Pickup disassembled, one coil's mechanical polarity re-oriented, rewired and ready for the reassembly process.

Time for the glue pallet and small artist brush as an applicator.

Regluing the coils back down so they stay in place.  Notice the uneven-ness of the top of the arrowed hole.  That hole became a Saving Grace shown further below.

One way to bridge even pressure in a tight / difficult spot.