I was cleaning the rear window on my 2008 Ford Explorer and the soldered wire terminal came loose from the window. As a result the defogger does not work.
Any idea on how to fix this? I suspect soldering would be the best bet, unless someone has a better idea.
All thoughts are appreciated.
Frankl
I don't think you want to put the heat of a soldering iron on your window. You just may wind up with a bucket or 2 of broken glass. Many years ago I had some luck with the glue for bonding the rear-view mirror button on and a product for repairing the defroster lines. You clean the area for the tab and glue it back on , then you painted the line repair product over top to bridge from the old line grid across the tab and bock to the line grid. Make sure the tab is clean metal on both sides for good contact. The glue alone wont do it , but it will hold the tab on then the liquid grid repair across the top makes the electrical contact. I would talk to your local glass company and see if those 2 products are still in use as it's been 30 years or so since I did it in my old glass shop. Long enough to not remember the names of the products. Good luck with it.
Jim
I've soldered many of them over the years. Toyota had a special solder iron to get both tabs at once, but a good gun will do the job. = Assuming the conductive layer has not been pulled off the glass. In that case the conductive (silver bearing) glue is the cat's meow.
Hiya Guys,
Thank you for your advice. The more I thought about using a soldering gun, the more I realized that, due to lack of experience, i may end up with a pile of broken glass.
Found the Permatex adhesive on ebay for $12.45 including shipping.
Will post a response once I get this thing fixed.
Frank
While I can't guarantee it, I seriously doubt you would break the window using a soldering iron or gun. Just make sure the area you are soldering the wire to is clean -- you may have to do a bit of scraping to get to material you can solder to. Also, many of those liquid solders and glues can do a pretty good job and I doubt you will hurt anything trying them. Don't they make repair "kits" to fix this? Check with your local AutoZone or do a Google search.
FYI: You probably already know you can defog the rear window using the AC in a pinch, although you cannot "deice" anything with this method.
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