Higgins

I've been having trouble with the door jamb switches on my 63 Starfire. The passenger side quit working so I found some that look similar except the 2 terminals were round instead of flat. I changed out the passenger side, works fine. The original drivers side is working except the plunger sticks a little and I have to pull on it to get it to pop out, so I started to replace it too. First I tried electrical contact cleaner, then wd-40, didn't help. Now the problem. The drivers side has only one terminal but 2 wires. One spade connector is pushed in the terminal and the other is wedged tight against that one. One wire controls the rear cabin lights and the other wire controls the console & map light. No matter what I do the lights won't come on using the switch. I can ground them and the lights work. I tried one wire in each hole, then one wire in the hole and the other touching the other. Any suggestions? Of course, I can't find any originals except the two wire kind.
Attached are some pics. #1 driver side #2 passenger side #3 new ones.
Thanks.
Higgins

Higgins

Well, I finally found the driver side courtesy light switch I needed. Took awhile but one day there was one on E-Bay, advertised as a NOS 1950s Pontiac switch, still in the original package. Didn't say whether it was a one wire or two wire switch so I sent the seller a message asking him to check and to test it. I could hardly believe it was the one I needed.
The driver side switch is a self grounding switch. I don't know how this switch is different inside than the non-grounding two wire switch. Wish I did but I don't want to tear apart my old switch in case I have to reuse it one day, it still sticks but does work.
So one problem solved. Next project is to fix the power antenna.
Higgins

viper771

Good post!! I am looking for new door jamb switches for my 62 Starfire. My orig. ones look a bit different than your orig ones... but the new ones I found on ebay look like your orig ones that came out of your car lol However... mine is a 2 wire switch with 2 wires. Never seen a switch like yours but I am glad you worked it out. I hope to do the same thing here soon

citcapp

The door switches connect and disconnect the ground to turn the light off and on, not the hot wire. When using the non-grounded switch you have to add a jumper wire from one side of the switch to ground in order to make the new switch work

Higgins

Citcapp, Your are correct. I finally did figure out that I could have used the two wire Mustang switch by taking the two wires, splicing the two together into one connector ( which I ended up doing anyways to eliminate piggybacking the two connectors) and inserting into one side of the switch, then using a grounded wire inserted into the other side of the switch. I didn't try it since I found the NOS switch but I am sure that would work. I thought the way the factory did it was kind of a hokey way of doing it, having each wire have a spade connector instead of being spliced into one,so it did have me confused.
Thanks
Higgins