Mooser

Motor housing is the ground Just attach a wire from negative to somewhere bare metal (scratch a little area or loosen off a clean bolt somewhere) on the door and then positive to ONE of the two terminals (use a crimp connector female with the plastic sleeve on it, hook it to one terminal and touch the loose end to the positive battery term
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JediOsborn

motor works!

So it has to be the wires.

Thanks for the step by step. I'm out of my comfort zone, but learning as I go.

Mooser

You did try it with the good switch and the drivers switch on the passenger window and the switches are good right?

Strip the wires back an inch or so and check them again in case it's corroded at those crimp connectors.

If it looks good (copper) but still not working, see if it's inside the door anywhere damaged/cut/pinched and you can get at it to splice new leads on.

If not, you'll need to remove the kick panel.
Move the window all the way up using your jumpers
Remove the sill plate to release the bottom of the kick-panel, there should be one screw up near the fuse panel (back yoga time) and you can sort of pivot it out from under the drivers lower dash. Might have the vent cable attached to the door is it's non-AC
Tie a good string to the loose end of the window wires and tape it up, pull those back through the conduit into the cavity behind the kick panel. See if you can find the break there, It's not easy to trace the wires from the kick panel, behind the drivers dash back to the harness to the window switches I'd just run 2 new wired right back to the switches and splice in where you know it's good.
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JediOsborn

In a flash a brilliance, I used the jumper to move the window up. Then hooked up the down wire to the motor and used the switch. It worked.

So it really all boiled down to that nasty brown wire with the exposed strands.

unreal.

But this is what owning an old car is about, right? It's not all cruising in the sunshine listening to the engine. It's digging into 40 - 50 year old problems...... at least that's what I'm telling myself.

Thanks again to everyone for their help

Mooser

That's why it's good to start by stripping back the wires some. Where they are exposed like that they corrode and it travels back under the insulation a surprising amount. If you don't want to buy a proper pigtail connector, crimp two new ends onto clean area of the wire and get some liquid-electrical tape (silicone) and coat the wire/crimp area then glob a bunch of the sealer (dielectric will work ) into the motor plug area after it's plugged in. It should outlast you
M