edcologne

so a few month ago one of the tabs of the rear window defogger got off, not the brightest design in the first place at a vert but nothing i can do about that.
while i live in cali i do like it to work in the mornings and in the upcoming rainy season, besides, it just bothers the s$#@ out of me if something on my car doesn't work.

facts are:
- issue is with conducting/connection between tab and film/lines on glass,
- window has tint,
- can't just throw out the window and replace at a vert, official version is "get a new top",

got the ford oem tab kit, got the tsb, this is asking for soldering. glass shop guy was my first stop, said he could not solder it because of gravity, can't take window out and lay on table, installed its kinda upside down. i did not try but i may...
glass guy glued it in (i believe w permatex, not 100% sure), held up well, just didn't work....

got on it myself, took it off, grabbed my multimeter, was somewhat hard to find a good conducting point on the window where the tab needs to go, permatexted it on, worked a few month.

now it stopped working again, i checked, its the connectivity of the tab to the film/lines on the glass that is missing.

i plan to pull it off again, search for a conducting spot and permatex it back on, i will consider "overhead" soldering if that worked for anyone out there, please let me know, i'm a bit concerned how the soldering heat works w the glass and the tint.

any ideas, suggestions, personal experience would be appreciated.

JimC

Mine has come off a couple of times. The dealer fixed it - came off again a couple of months later. They fixed it again, and swapped a connector from an Explorer. Worked for about a year, and came disconnected again.

I bought a kit on line and repaired it myself. I am at the office right now so don't have the name but will look for it this evening. That repair has held, and in fact I kept the kit (just made sure everything was bottled up tight) and had to use it on the other side last year.

JimC

I found the web site for the kit to repair the tab, it is

http://www.frostfighter.com/prt2000.htm

edcologne

thanks a lot, jim.

will get it.

i actually saw that stuff when i did some research when it happened the first time, didn't get it for a number of reasons then (price, easy access, recomendations). lets see how it works.

edcologne

i finally got around to get to use the frostfighter kit a week and a half ago.
just wanted to write a bit about it since i thought others would run into the same situation.
pretty much just followed the instructions on their website and in the package.

first i got out the multimeter to find a good area of conduction at the tap location, for some reason the exact original position did not give me that so i moved it a bit. did not have the top down yet but there should be plenty clearence.

i did it indoors but its still relatively cool here that time of the year, i had to hold the tap in place for a few minutes with a heat gun pointed at it, then put some hot high output halogen worklights at the window from outside for about 2 hrs.
now the tap was well in place but i waited another day before sticking on the cable connector.
if i had a real choice i'd do the repair in warmer weather.

so far it works well, have plenty leftover in case it comes off again or the other side becomes an issue assuming it doesn't dry out til then.

JimC

I did mine the same way - because of course you don't find out it isn't working until it is in the 30's.

And if you keep it capped tightly you will be able to use it again. I did my other side a year later when it came off and just happened to look at the bottles this weekend as I was working in the garage and they are still liquid.