I noticed this morning when I opened the rear hatch of my 88 that what I am assuming is the rear window defogger thingy has come off. There is one on each side and it appears to "hook" onto the hatch supports. The cable comes up through the supports and comes out on the top near the glass where the flat wire goes around the bottom of the glass.
Sound familiar? Is there a way to re-connect this? Looks like a lot of wires inside this cable. Will the defogger still work? The other side is still hooked up.
Bert Wiest

 

The only sure way to get that wire/strap reconected is to solder it back onto the edge of the grid (the place it was connected to on the glass). Don't use a flame and don't think that the little pointer/pencil type iron is ever going to get hot enough. You need a full size high out-put solder gun to heat the area well enough. The glass absorbs the heat fast. Do not try to do the soldering if the glass is cold or it may crack! You should lay out the glass upside-downin a room at 70+deg. and let it have an hour or so to get up to temp, if it is even warmer you are better off!
Once you get it soldered take about 2" of half inch rubber fuel line and slice it diagonaly length wise to get a half cone shape. Fill the cone with 3m window weld urethane and place over the area that the stap is soldered to the glass. The strap should be protruding from the larger side of the cone shape and moved around a little bit to ensure that the urethane has worked all around the wire and carefully clean any urethane that pushed out past the cone on all sides. Place a small weight on this to keep it in place and let it set for at least 12hrs. Once that is done you will find that the wire is now protected and it is almost impossible for it to accidently get pulled of or allowing the same kind of flex cracking that an unprotected joint goes through.

You can sustitute the window weld with plasti dip (home depot) but it is messier and requires a little more set time.

 

I've re-attached it to the glass with a Weller 260/200 watt soldering gun. I wasn't too concerned with glass temp etc. Maybe I should have been, but it re-attached just fine with solder.


Art

 

You can buy conductive epoxy.

 

It hasn't cole loose from the glass. its the wire that comes up the hatch supports and then goes to the glass. there is a small bracket that it hangs on on the support and this wire has broken.

 

Now you have me confused so lets try to narrow in on where you are talking about.
Wire attaches to the bottom of the strut(coming out from under the plastic trim/carpet area).
1) The strut acts as a conductor for current. (there is no wire)
2) The top of the strut has a tab for wire connection.
3) a plastic connector attaches to that tab (the plastic conector houses a brass fitting that the lead wire is attached to).
4) The wire goes out from connector to the glass.
5) At the glass the stripped bare wire is dirrectly soldered to the grid/glass.

Which of these 5 points are you refering to?
2A) If the tab has broken off the strut you will end up having to replace the strut, and fish the broken peice from the connector to snap in onto the new strut.
3A) If the conector itself is broken but the brass peice is still attached to the wire you will have to do some searching of parts houses for a simillar conector which will allow you to snap in the right peice...I have never seen this exact conector but seen several that are similar and should work.
3Ab) If the wire pulled out of the brass peice inside the conector then you can carfully pull out the brass from wire end while pushing in the little tab inside of it that locks it into the plastic housing from the other end. Take that brass peice to any large auto parts or electical parts store and they can match it for you. I use a large flat quilting needle to reach in from the front side and push back the very small tab. A good bright light and looking into the plastic housing you will eventually see how it is locked in. The new brass peice will have wings that fold over about 1/8th inch of striped bare wire then crimp it very tight, then just snap the brass peice back into the plastic.
4A) If the wire broke, splice it and shink tube the splice.
5A) This procedure was covered in my first reply. The epoxy fix seldom lasts long and looses amps from resistance, but some prefer it because it is easier. it comes down to personal preferance.
Good luck.