The red/white power feed wire going to the switch in the drivers door suddenly broke and my windows would only work by holding the emergency lockout switch. As it turned out the cable broke inside the rubber conduit which is about the worst place on the car to repair…
Details coming soon!

Tags:1967 Cadillac Eldorado Repair Tip, 1967 Eldorado, Power Window, Wiring, Door Rubber Conduit

I woke up the 58 Eldorado Seville from its winter hibernation and when I went through all the switches and options I noticed that the front of the seat would neither move up nor down. The motor was running but it did not move. I could see that the front adjuster with the solenoid would not engage.

First I suspected that the switch has a problem - so I took it apart. With a test light you can easily test its function. With a three way jumper wire you can simulate the switch as well at the switch connector. You can see the picture below from the shop manual and its described which terminals you have to connect together to get the desired movement. The shop manual is extremely helpful in diagnosing any seat related problem. Check it out below!

Everything was fine at the switch. So I checked the wires going to the solenoids. There is a plug underneath the switch and I checked the wires from there. Everything was ok there as well.
For some reason the mechanism still did not engage. The front actuator was repaired by the previous owner once, as there were some screws in there which originally were not used. I tightened them and suddenly it worked again when I almost wanted to give up and wanted to try to find a good used one from one of the Cadillac parts places.
I hope it will work now for a long time. The seat is fully adjustable again.

Below are some pictures from the shop manual which should be very helpful if you have power seat problems as well.

Six-way power seat diagram.

Thats the front actuator and solenoid which had a problem on my car. The mechanism did not engage for some unknown reason. Probably a bad internal contact or the mechanism was stuck somehow.

This 3 way jumper wire is very helpful to test the various functions and to rule out any problem with the switch.

The procedure to test all the functions of the seat.
The 6 way power seat wiring diagram.

How to test the circuits.

Front Seat Adjuster Actuator Assembly (1957 and 1958)

Tags:6 way power seat, 1958, 1958 Cadillac Repair Tip, 1957, Diagnosis Chart, 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Seville, Rebuild, Restoration, Wiring, Wiring Diagram, Repair

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

Today I could finally fix the issue with the broken wires in the passenger door. Because of these broken wires there were some issues with the power vent windows. You can read about the problem here.
Today I started to repair the broken wires by soldering them together and put some heat shrinking tubes and electric tape around the repaired areas.
You can see some image below. More of them can be found in the restoration section.
Everything now works as it should! Lets hope that the repaired wires wont break again any time soon ;-)

Next up - repair the door jamb switch of my 1967 Eldorado and install a new power seat transmission as the front up/down solenoid does no longer work and therefore does not engage the according seat transmission. This will involve removing the front bench seat which is very heavy... Oh it is so much fun owning these cars! ;-)

I removed the kick panel, heater-box and door sill scuff plates to get access to the broken cables.


They broke at the area where all the bending is taking place when the door is opened. Here the first wire is already soldered together


I put some heat shrinking tube around it after soldering


Just to be safe I wrapped some more electric tape around it

All the wires are back together


The wires are back together in the metallic tube going through the door


Kick panel and everything else back in place. Everything works as it should now.


As I work as a cameraman I had a good film light at hand to light the working area properly.

Tags:Wiring, 1958, Eldorado, Power Vent Windows, Restoration, 1958 Cadillac Repair Tip

A while ago I thought that I had already fixed an issue with the wiring of the power vent window in the passenger door.
Yesterday when I was repairing the 6 way power seat which had a contact problem somewhere at a solenoid - suddenly the power vent window started to close itself when I shut the door. So the problem was back! (At least the power seats do work perfectly now!)
So I decided to spend the day in the garage - rewiring the 58´s passenger door as there definitely was a short somewhere in the power vent window circuit. Thats the kind of work I absolutely HATE! 52 years of bending the wires whenever you open the door took its toll.
The bug was easily found after I removed the kick panel, door sill plates, parts of the heat tubing, and the metal tube which is going through the door to protect the wires. 5 (!) cables were broken and only held together by the original fabric covering around it. The cables all broke exactly at the end of the tube where all the bending is going on when the door is opened. I will now have to splice the cables back together somehow and get them back into the tube. No idea how I will do this - I will have to buy some electric supply material first, but the shops are all closed over the weekend. I´m still stunned that the windows still worked and the only sign of failure was that they started to open or close themselves sometimes when I opened the door, and that the battery was drained at one occasion. I guess I was lucky that the car did not catch fire...

UPDATE - Feb. 8th:
I fixed it - read everything about it above or by clicking on this link!

Tags:1958, Eldorado, Wiring, Power Vent Windows, Restoration, 1958 Cadillac Repair Tip

When I came into the garage to take something out of the trunk of the 1958 Seville yesterday, I pushed the trunk release button in the glove box and... nothing happened. I pushed again and instead of hearing the trunk pop open and the sound of the pull down motor going up, there was just nothing happening. This was when I noticed that the interior lights did not come on either... The battery was completely dead.
So there was no other way than hooking up the charger. Two hours later, the battery was strong enough to start the car. I checked all electric components and everything seemed to work - so I was wondering what drained down a fully charged battery over night? This was the moment when I noticed a clicking noise coming from the passenger door. I opened all windows including the power vents . When I opened the passenger door the vent window started to close itself! So even when the vent window was fully closed, the window motor would still draw current. At a test drive with the door closed (of course)- the window would eventually start closing itself again.

So I had to remove all the window switches and unscrew the kick panels. Of course some of the cables behind there were broken or had the isolation coming of at the areas where they had to bend each time the door was opened or closed. I replaced one section of a cable and isolated the other ones.
So far everything seems to be working o.k. now. After an extensive test drive and opening the doors multiple times - everything seems to be well.
It is really a pain to get access to all these cables and trying to repair them. Some smaller hands would be very handy in this cases.

Thats the area behind one of the 1958 Eldorado kick panels where the cables have to bend all the time. After 51 years they seem to get tired.

Tags:Wiring, short, 1958, Eldorado, 1958 Cadillac Repair Tip