Aria pro 11 revamp.

[joe-90]

Hi folks. I've decided to drag my old Aria Les Paul out of retirement and give it a few birthday presents. I bought it new in 1978 and it's been in mothballs for the past 20 years. I recently dug it our and found it to be a much better guitar than I'd remembered. It's a fair bit lighter than the real thing which gives it quite a bright tone - I've played much worse guitars in my time (that cost a lot more).
However, before I get on the revamping I'd like a bit to ask you all for a bit of advice on a couple of issues.
First of all I've never liked tone pots and never used them so I replaced them decades ago with split coil switches (don't like pull pots). So they are staying.
I want to replace the volume controls as the originals are making things sound rather muddy. So my first question is:

If I replace the vol pots and leave the tone pots out - do I still need a capacitor in there anywhere (treble bleed I believe they're called)?

I'm also changing the pickups.

So question 2 is:

The pups I have in mind are a couple of original Bill Lawrence 500R that I have taken out of a guitar I'm selling. How would they suit the Aria?


Question 3:
I've noticed the other day that the tailpiece is very light (Aluminium or aluminum depending where you come from). Is the real Les Paul tailpiece light or is it chromed solid brass? Any advice on whether or what I should do there?

Question 4) The machine heads are a bit cheap - any recommendations on decent replacements?


Thanks very much folks - look forward to any replies.

[UITA]

I'd like to see some photos as I have a bit of an Aria LP collection. Is it a Japanese import? If you want it to look original you could always turn the tone controls into coil taps.