Sorry, I thought somebody might have a quick answer about the switches even if they weren't following the other thread. But thanks, I was about to go spend $20 on another switch.

Tonight's experiment: I pulled the BLU/Y and BLU/W wires off the 2-pin and measured the voltage, and got 12 volts on the B/Y with the switch pulled up and 12 on the B/W with the switch pushed down. And now I'm really confused, because how is the motor not working in both directions if it's getting voltage? If I swap the positions of the two wires on the 2-pin, it will run in either direction, so it can't be the wires going from the 2-pin to the motor. Is there something about the connection to the master switch that would make it not work in the down position (it still doesn't do anything except click from the driver's side switch) or is it just a random gremlin that I'm going to have to live with if I don't want to rewire the whole car?

 

The motor needs voltage on one wire and ground on the other wire to work properly.

Verify you have continuity to ground on the other wire.

12V on an uplugged connector doesn't mean that the wire is carrying adequate voltage or current to the motor. A volt drop test can identify a bad wire. You just measure voltage on that wire between the switch and the motor while plugged in and pushing the button. You will have to backprobe the electrical connectors to do this test.

The voltage across the same wire on a voltage drop test should be very close to zero.

 

Arrrgh, I screwed up and fried another switch. I guess I should give up while I still have 75% of my windows working. Thanks anyway, guys.

 

Well, since apparently I never met a lost cause I didn't like, I went to the salvage yard and got some more switches. And guess what I discovered? The front 6-pin actually is supposed to be wired the same as the back ones (both multiplex wires on the left side, both motor wires on the right side). Here's how it was on the two 02s I found that still had their passenger doors.

So the service manual was correct (the version that had the brackets for the different 01-02 connector locations), and the ETM was incorrect (it had the two blue/yellow wires reversed). However, when I wire it as shown in the SM the motor automatically runs when the key is on (and fries the switch and/or the fuse), and when I wire it as shown in the ETM the switch functions halfway normally (will run the motor in one direction when pulled up, does nothing when pushed down).

With this in mind, am I still looking for voltage drop on the wires to the motor, or something else?

 

I don't know what is going on with your window switch/wiring. It has to be a wiring or issue with the source. I'd almost recommend going to the junkyard and buying the door wiring harness and replace it.

You can trace back each wire from the switch to make sure you have the proper voltages or grounds from the source.

 

It actually did cross my mind to do just that (replace the whole wiring harness). They have 50% off on Wednesdays so if I haven't figured it out by next week, maybe I will. Is there a trick to getting those green 20-pins out from the multiplex side? The one that goes to the door is smashed up (think whoever was responsible for the door yanked it out of the donor car with a pair of pliers) but I tried taking some of the other ones out with just the push tab and they didn't want to come out, either. I found a post on another forum that referred to a "knuckle buster" tab on a Prelude connector, is it the same thing on these?

 

Well, the good news is, I successfully got the F connector unplugged from the fuse box. The bad news is, looking at it from that end didn't reveal any new information, and then I tried the 6-pin in the normal configuration again just to try and verify exactly what it was doing and once again it appeared to run normally for the first 30 seconds and then blown fuse and dead switch. And then after that, I tried putting the pins back to the way that half-worked (Blue/yellow pins switched) and got another blown fuse and dead switch so my next step is going to be to pull the whole harness out and go get another one from the salvage yard if I can't spot anything obviously amiss. I finally got the window to go back up by using jumper clips to connect the blue/black and red/white wires straight to the motor wires but I didn't want to push my luck any further so I just pulled the fuse.

 

I got the wiring harness out and found some fraying and breakage in the blue/yellow wire by where it would have exited the cabin. Would this be enough to cause the issues I've been having, and if so is it worth trying to fix?

[Edit: Just tried crimping it back together with no improvement, although I discovered that I had the other end plugged the wrong way into the 20-pin, which probably explains why it ceased working even halfway yesterday. As of now it's back to working in one direction only with the blue/yellow wires in opposite sides of the 6-pin from where they should be. Back to the salvage yard I go... (on half-off Wednesday, that is...) ]

 

OK, I swapped out the whole harness and it still did that thing where the switch clicks uncontrollably when connected (IIRC, I didn't even have the key turned on, and the #8 fuse was pulled out at the time). Also tried swapping out the four-switch from the driver's side, other switches functioned normally, although thinking about it now I'm not sure I had the front passenger's switch attached to the 6-pin at the time, although the fuse was in.

NOW what? I pulled out a driver's and passenger's side fusebox + multiplex while I was at the scrap yard, but is there anything else simple that I should try first? Am I reading the schematic correctly that the ground for the passenger side wiring is under the seat? B/C there's a bunch of weird wiring under there, something that looks like it could have been an amp wire and a black wire that looks like it's got an old-fashioned phone or data plug on the end of it. (Stereo is a Pioneer, and I'm reading that stereo installs can screw up the multiplex. Door speakers are factory AFAICT, though.)

 

Mystery solved - it was the multiplex. Or something in that box, anyway. I replaced it with the one I pulled out of the junkyard and presto! I have 4 working windows again!

My best guess is that maybe the original one got fried from having the wrong door wiring.

Thanks for your help, everybody!