Bit of experimenting this morning... I tried the work around, and it seemed to work. Since everything on gang 1 was working except position 1, I just jumped common G1 to common G3 and jumped the lead going to G1P1 to G3P1. Did not rewire everything to G3.
Once I had done that the the neck pickup dropped out completely. Everything looked good on the switch...so I decided it must be their was a break in one of the pup leads, or a bad solder connection. Re-tinned and re-soldered the wire, and tested for continuity...all good.
This is when I noticed that the ground wire for the pup had come loose. Re-soldered that and everything went deadly quite...no hum...nothing. I thought I had killed it.
But it turns out that once properly grounded, the humbuckers just seem to be quiet. Tap tests worked on both pickups in all positions of the pickup selector switch as well as the 4-way. I tried to jiggle it in the ways that had been disconnecting the pup, the connection appears now to be solid.
So was it the switch? Or was it the faulty ground? Or was it the pup wire that may have had a cold solder problem? I am no longer sure.
However, I am grateful for the advice! Not much to loose trying it, as JimC says...and because if it failed once it can fail again as Simon implied...I am ordering another 4 way, so I'll have it on hand if the switch turns out to be more defective than it appears.
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