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so, the old door jam switch on my driver’s side was completely shot so I bought a replacement and installed it. Before, it was very intermittent wether it would work or not. After the new one was installed I get the following situation:
if if I open the driver side door, nothing comes on. If I then open the passenger side door, everything comes on as expected (including the driver’s side door panel). If I turn on the interior light switch that’s accessible from the back seats, everything comes on no problem. The problem is getting the driver’s door switch working to turn on the lights. I’ve tested the switch and it does seem to be working to break any electrical current when depressed. Any ideas what’s happening?
That switches function is to provide ground to your interior lighting when the door opens. Take the wire that's connected to the switch and touch it to ground and see if the light/s come on.
If you have the same problem with two different switches, chances are the switch isn't the problem. Either the wire from the switch to the splice point in the harness is bad or the switch isn't making good ground contact to the body metal.
Thanks gents. Sorry for the late reply. I had to leave town for awhile. I think, based on what you’re saying, I either have the wrong type of switch or it’s not grounding properly. Check out my video and see if you can shed some light.
If you jumper the 2 prongs on the switch do they light? One side of the switch should be ground and the other goes to the light. What it looks like to me is that your possibly missing the ground.
When I jump the two together, nothing happens. The old switch had the metal wings that would spark a little when putting it into the body of the car. In that case, the car was grounding the switch, right? When I push the new switch into the frame, nothing happens. It doesn’t seem like the switch is properly grounding the circuit. I think jumping the two together is flowing electricity to the bulbs, but there’s no proper ground. This is very strange to me since it seems like this is a very simple switch.
Originally Posted by oldcutlass
If you jumper the 2 prongs on the switch do they light? One side of the switch should be ground and the other goes to the light. What it looks like to me is that your possibly missing the ground.
This is what the original switch looks like. The fins/wings go all the way under the switch. Oldsobsolete has one, but they're trying to get $95 a pop. Kinda seems ridiculous for such a simple switch.
Okay, I figured it out. The replacement switch I bought, despite looks, was not self-grounding. I ran a wire from the grounded side (thanks oldcutlass) to the body and voila! it works now.
