It's finally finished! with the caveat that the bridge will need to the better aligned at some point, I'm holding off doing that until I can work out if the bridge has slightly too small string spacing as I can't see any adjustment to positioning it making all 4 strings line up with the pickup pole pieces.
My mate wired it up for me with a push/pull switch for series/parallel modes and a PIO Cap, it sounds great in all configurations but I particularly like the sound of the bridge pickup solo'd, I usually play with both fully on but I think because the J&D pickups are quite hot it's sound great with just the Bridge on.
One of the many things I've learned doing this bitsa bass is that not all parts that look like Fender parts are necessarily exactly the same dimensions, for instance the curve at the heal of the neck isn't identical on the J&D neck and Squier body, they fit together and it's fine but not perfect. same thing goes for the bell plate and pickguard.
Thanks for all the comments and help
I'll call it a day on this thread.