It must be something simple, but it's escaping me. How does one remove the door contact switch? I've removed the screw and used needle nose pliers to disconnect the wires from the switch (I couldn't see much so I also now don't know what wire goes where on the switch). It doesn't look like there's any way for it to feed through the hole from outside to inside, and it will almost come out from the inside to the outside but it feels like if I pull any harder it will break. What's the trick?

I haven't looked at it lately, but does it come out from the area where the speaker grille is, or do you have to position it correctly, to take it out from the front side maybe?

Here's a picture of the switches when removed. The plastic insulator makes them a little tricky to extract. Pull out towards the rear of the car, then rotate outward to clear the electrical contacts and insulator tab.

Click to view attachment

Apologies, that photo is a bit misleading - the switches are installed with the screws inboard.

You'll notice that the inward corner of the panel-bound portion of the switch is chamfered to facilitate rotation for installation/removal.

That did it . Thanks so much for taking the time to help.