I´m fully detailing the 78 Biarritz at the moment. During this I think I found the only non working gadget this car offers. The 78 Biarritz came with an automatic seat back release. When you open the door a solenoid engages and you can fold the seat back without pushing any button or lever to allow rear passengers to get in or out of the car. When you close the door again the seat lock engages and the seat back stays in position.

I also have the same system on my 1971 Lincoln Mark III where I had some problems as well in the past with a loose wire.

On the Biarritz the passenger side worked flawlessly, but on the drivers side the solenoid would not engage.
I started my search for the problem at the top of the two door jamb switches which is the one controlling this function.
When I wiggled it and pulled it out, I could hear the solenoid engage. So I knew that the problem must be with this switch.

Unfortunately it's not easily accessible. As I do not have the 1978 shop manual yet - it took me a while to figure out how to access it.
I managed to get to it through the lower dash and to uninstall it.
As it turned out it was slightly bent and did not make good contact once the door was opened.
I carefully bent it back straight - and after some trial and error it was back in working order.
It took me a good hour to fix this.

Now I´m back to cleaning the car to my standards, something that will probably take the whole winter...

The upper switch is controlling the seat back solenoid. (Picture was taken before cleaning the door jambs...)


The removed door jamb switch. When the door is closed no contact is made and the solenoids are not energized causing the seat back to be locked in position.
You can see that the switch was slightly bent - making no good contact.


When the door is open contact should be made and the solenoid should energize... The switch did no longer make a good contact though.


I had to remove the lower dash to access the cables on the rear of the door jamb switch through a tiny hole and disconnect the connector with a long nose plier...


I´m now in the long process of thoroughly cleaning the engine bay to look like new again...

Tags:Door Jamb Switch, 1978 Cadillac Repair Tip, Restoration, Automatic Seat Back Release, Solenoid, 1978, Cadillac, Eldorado, Biarritz

Whenever I opened the drivers door on my 1967 Cadillac Eldorado the interior lights would not come on. Only the red warning light in the door lit up. Everything worked from the passenger´s side though. So I had to check out the door jamb switch. I unscrewed it and checked the three cables going into it. One cable is for the warning light in the door, one for the front interior lights below the dash and one for the rear interior lights in the C-pillar. I made sure that all contacts were in place and had to bend them a little. After a little tweaking the lights started to work again. When I screwed the switch back into place, the rear lights went out again. So I had to adjust the contacts once again and now everything works perfectly. Great to have the interior lights come on again when I step into the car.

This is how the doorjamb switch looks like on a 1967 Eldorado when removed. Sorry for the crappy cell phone picture!
I will have to clean the paint in the doorjambs soon as you can see in this picture...

Tags:Restoration, 1967, Eldorado, Door Jamb Switch, Wiring, 1967 Cadillac Eldorado Repair Tip