If anyone remembers my dithering about trying to use 4 used power window switches to replace my long since destroyed power seat switch, and my concluding that it wouldn't work.... well I was wrong.

I tried it with some bone-yard BMW E-30 switches, as there's a lot of those to pick from these days. I'm sure the MB window switches would work too and then you wouldn't have a hybrid. The BMW switches have a similar feature of the Saab switches that I had tried to dissect: some of the pairs of contacts that beeped the continuity tester when closed, also beeped in the neutral position. This threw me because I'm thinking that I didn't want power flowing to the motors when the switch was off. But then, I'm thinking, this would impair window function so I must be missing something.

Then I noticed that the pairs that were hot when neutral were only hot on one side of the switch -- up or down. It dawned on me that I could put the ground side of the circuit on those two pairs, one ground on up and reversed on down, since it would disconnect in the reverse position.

It was quite a puzzle to work out but oh, baby, it was satisfying when it worked and it works like a charm. Here's what it looks like:



And just for comparison, here's the passenger door w/ stock switch.



Like I said before, I like this car a lot but the seat switches strike me as a bit of stretch, a little too much cute and not enough solid function. With the window switches, if one switch goes bad I can replace it for next to nothing. The stock switch seems prone to losing one or two functions just from broken plastic. And my passenger seat will work in two of the functions one way only. Great, the seat keeps getting further and further out of position.

The whole thing cost me less than $20 but lordy, it took awhile -- 8 hours plus. (?!?) Just fashioning a way to hold the switches firmly to the door took a bit of doing. I was able to use the stock plastic trim and it is some sturdy plastic. Took quite a bit of abuse in the process -- one side is only about an eighth inch wide -- and it never broke.

If anyone out there is as crazy as I am in this dept and wants to try this, let me know and I'll go into more detail.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K