Finally overcame my trepidation about opening up the wife's door to deal with this issue. Since doing so on my own 1983 242 and finding rotten panel fiber board necessitating a serious rebuild project, I have been hesitant to do this.

Amazingly, her 1980 door panel is in excellent shape - likely because the butcher paper "barrier" was still intact. However, it fell into pieces when I touched it.

Anyhow, it appears that lubrication is all that is really needed here. I sprayed all I could find with white grease and operated the mechanism a bunch. Seems to be working fine now.

So all I need to do is apply a coat of polyurethane, make and affix visqueen barriers for the door and panel, and put everything back together. However, I did note the typical cracks at the pillar above the speaker well that support the door panel. I have already drilled the end of that crack out and applied a splint of metal strip using JB Weld.

Thanks for all.