Rear defrost wires
 

Anyone ever resoldered the wire bus bars back onto the rear window for the defrost? I'm in the midst of putting a new seal on the rear window of my 240. While removing it the wire bus bars that connect to the window came off. I'm not totally sure that both of them were securely held to the window after 33 years anyway and could be the reason my rear defrost doesn't work. Can I just solder them back on?

Some years back I found a conductive epoxy to do this, worked pretty well.

In the circuit board industry, they place parts with an epoxy which when heated (re-flow soldering) with IR, melts into a solder blob. Might work also (for surface-mount devices).

I manged to re-solder mine but it did not help as my little grid lines were corroded to the point there is many breaks in the circuit.

But, Ounce soldered with the Ohm and Volt meter I got conduction; but the grids were shot.
In my case I had the Rear Window Out to redo the Rear seal and rust repair.

Yeah I'm not sure resoldering the wires on is going to help. I can' seem to get anything other than infinite resistance across the glass. So I'm pretty sure the lines are too corroded. But the cheapest new one I could find was over $300. And the chances that a used one is going to last very long are pretty slim.

I believe permatex makes repair kits for this, one for re-attaching the terminals to the glass, another for repairing the lines if they get scratched.

-J

I am not sure if it was on the forum or not but within the last 2 months someone posted info on a kit you could buy to restore your defroster/defogger.
You can buy a kit or buy the individual grid lines and the heavier sides.

I have and have used some of the Permatex Grid Repair Liquid but on my window the corrosion was too wide spread and I also found I could not easily paint on a whole grid with the slanting of the window and the room available.
When I had the Window out it could have been done.
If you want to see what it looks like there is a picture on Amazon as the sell it their.
The Autozone type place counter guys did not know what it was but 2 of the privatly owned Autopart stores had it. It can be anywere from $8-$13 per littl vile.
I have used it with success on scratched grids in the past.

I found the site, it also has the conductive glue for the wire connections:
Search= Window defroster repair kit

Window defroster defogger repair grids
http://www.frostfighter.com/

I found the Permatex Defrost Repair Kit. It has the stuff to stick the contact wires back on as well as repair broken grid lines. I stuck the wires back on, but they kept breaking off. And like you Diesel911 my wires are really badly corroded, so I left the wires off, and put the window back in. I'm happy that the window is in with it's new seal. Though I was hoping to get my defrost working again, but alas it won't until I feel like forking out more than $300 for new glass.