Any electricians in the audience?

The left rear power lock actuator had stripped out, so I replaced it with one out of a junkyard latch mechanism. And as you may know, the door microswitch is on the harness with the actuator. So that got replaced as well. The power lock works again.

Now when I open the door I get the flickering puddle lamp and the clickclickclick from the puddle lamp relay. That's new. [Bad language deleted.] I know what's next - pull the door card back off, clean and test the switch and the connectors, look for bad ground points. Maybe replace the switch.

But here are some additional symptoms that have me scratching my head, especially after looking at the wiring diagram.
-I tested the switch for continuity and resistance before I put it in. Seemed ok.
-When I open any other door, the relay stops clicking. The puddle lamp glows dimly but steadily. The other door's puddle lamp is fine.
-Pulling this puddle lamp bulb out doesn't stop the clicking.
(The car arrived with the puddle-light problem on the right front door as well. As recommended here on the forums, I pulled that bulb and the clicking stopped pending a proper repair)

Any thoughts or opinions about this? Anything specific I should be looking for when I get the door apart again?

Thanks.
Thos/MA

 

The most fun is when the Driver's door has the failing switch and the column is set to AUTO.
The steering column moves in/out and up/down at the same rate as the "clickclickclick from the puddle lamp relay".

 

I got everything apart and poked around with the multimeter. No surprise: the root cause was the door switch, as it apparently always is. In the closed position it was showing a resistance of about 35 ohms. Good thing I had saved the switch attached to the bad lock actuator; which tested at about 0.5 ohms on my meter. After some cutting, soldering and reassembly the clicking has gone away, at least from that door.

Still curious about that resistance causing the set of symptoms I got. Maybe the resistance caused enough of a voltage drop to confuse the control module in charge of the relay?