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Almost every line bad on a rear defroster - repair ideas?


HAMERMAN

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Posted

OK - I know this one is from left field but I never cease to be amazed at the diverse knowledge here at HFC.

Just shy of 200K my 1992 Saab 900 convertible finally kicked the bucket. A couple of months ago I recently replaced it with 1995 900 Convertible with 75K on it. The car was well taken care of but as you would expect of a car that old there have been a couple of things that needed fixing.

The first time I used the rear defroster on the car the very top of the window looked clear but nothing else. I figured that the defroster wasn't getting any power and I needed a fuse or a relay or maybe even had a broken tab at the window. I wrote off the top of the window being clear as an effect of the way the convertible material hangs over the rear window.

I took a look this weekend fully expecting to find that the window wasn't getting any voltage, to my surprise it turns out power was getting to the window and that every single line except the top one is bad!

If I look from outside the car all of the lines look good but that is just the orange paint (silkscreening?) which looks to be fully intact. From the inside I can see that same orange in many areas. Each line appears to be missing as much as a foot of the silver/grey conductive material. Most repair kits seem to be aimed at fixing short one or two inch scratches so fixing it that way would probably require 20+ kits.

Unfortanately for this year convertible the back window is glued to the top so replacing the window is not an option unless I change out the entire top.

Any ideas on a fix? The only remote possibility I can think of is to buy a can of conductive guitar shielding paint from Stew-Mac and give that a try.

6 answers to this question

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Posted

Trade off the car before winter gets here.

OK. That would be wrong. The 20+ kits might be your only choice. The only cure I have known has been to replace a rear windshield.

Posted

Trade off the car before winter gets here.

I have a Subaru for that. :-)

I stick with convertible season about a month longer than most sane people so there will be mornings where there is frost on the windows but I drive home from work with the top down wearing a hat, gloves and coat.

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