Both rear switches on my 97 explorer work intermittently, when I disassembled them, I could usually get them to work out of the door, but when I put them back in the panel, no luck. I am feeling this is a contact problem. Is there a fix or do I need new switches

Replace them.

Didn't think of that??

I actually was wondering if anyone actually tried repairing them. On my old benz, you could disassemble the switch and clean the contacts and they would go on working for another 10 years. I took these apart and they are all copper contacts and there are two springs which I thought may just be worn.

I realized that you can possibly clean them but from my experience it will fail again and it's usually when it's raining outside and one of your passengers would open the window to toss something out and it would get stuck in the down position. That's why I mentioned replacement.