This thread reminds me of when I bought my used Telecaster DeLuxe back in the mid seventies. The tone controls didn't seem to work, so I took the pickguard off and noticed that there were no capacitors connected to the tone pots.I took it to a friend who was much more familiar with electronics, and he said it looked like there had never been any soldering of the tone pots, and put a couple of capacitors on.
I still love Fender stuff, though.