Re: Survival revisitted

Posted by 58L8134 On 2016/3/30 17:18:28

Hi

One issue on cars with center-opening doors of B-pillar-less configuration is the window seal between the door glasses without binding when the doors are opened and closed. Both the '57-'58 Cadillac Eldorado Broughams and the '61-'67 Lincoln Continental convertibles had this situation.

Because the front doors are most frequently used, its glass seats against a rubber edge on the rear window. As you can imagine, with its edge slightly inside the front window frame, it would bind when the rear door is opened.

To alleviate this situation, mechanisms and power operation come into play. Push the rear door release, the rear window retracts rearward and down two inches for clearance. Once the door is closed, the window returns up and forward to the closed position. If the rear window is already down, the apparatus doesn't return it to closed.

All this depended on limit and knife switches, yards of wiring, relays etc. For the technology of the times, it worked fairly well, though costly and expensive to repair when it didn't. Just ask any '60's Continental convertible owner about them.

Steve