I did it today, boy it feels good to have a rear window defroster after being broken for about 5 years. I just wanted to know how to do it before tearing into the job, plus I always thought it was the modular itself that was bad, but it's the plug that melts causing the defroster to not work
Tool for the job.
Breaker bar (3/8 drive)
10mm socket (1/4 drive)
1/4 drive socket
3/8 drive socket
t-50 socket (3/8 drive)
Thick pilers
small screwdriver
wire stripper and connecters for no soder
and for sodering
Sodering iron
Thinest electrical soder as possible
Remember some steps are for 2 door models only
1. (2 door model) Use a T-50 to remove the seat belt bolt, use a breaker bar if necessary, it will move
2. Use a small flathead screwdriver to pry out the plastic pin holding in the coat hook.
3. Fold down the rear seat.
4. Gently pull the trim piece away from the body. Work around the edges.
5. (2 door model???) Pull out this small panel. This prevented me from pulling the panel completely off the body. This has the hinge bar going thru for the fold down seats. Just pull and leave hang
6. Now you can see the mod on the "C" pillar
7. Unplug the window connectors
8. Unplug the main plug from the mod. I pulled mine thru the seat belt area.
9. Use a 1/4 drive socket and a 10mm socket to remove the bolt from the body
10. Pull the mod down and out from the seat belt area, and unplug the radio antenna
11. Now both plugs are free
12. As you can see in step 8, the plug is melted away.Now you can cut the plug off and go to Step 13, or you can do this for sodering. Get the small screwdriver you used to remove the coat hook in step 2, and jam into the sides of the remaining plug. If it's melted away, it should be easy to break.
13. To finish the job, a nice beefy pair of plyers to crack the casing off
14. Remove the plug from the wires. You are not reusing the plug so it doesn't matter if you break it, just don't break the connecters inside it.
15. Open the mod around the egdes with the same small screwdriver. I bought another at the junkyard beforehand becuase I though the mod was the problem
16. Take off both sides until you see the board. Don't lose the rubber piece for the window plugs. Be sure to put it back in later
17. You can soder the the termials. The black wire goes on the right side, and the green goes on the left.
18. Be sure to remove as much of the plug from the black wire as possible. Use a small screwdriver, or wire brush to do the job, take care to not damage the plug.
19. While working, you can use the seat back hook to hold up the mod. Just put the wires in the hook
20. I wasn't happy with the sodering, so I cut the plugs off as close as I could, stripped the wires, and put connecters on them. I took care to put the connecters on in such a way that if they disconnected, they wouldn't touch the other side. I also put a small piece of electrical tape around the green wire's connceter.
21. Put everything back in reverse order. Be sure the wires don't come unpluged while putting it back. You can use electrical tape to tape the body of the mod closed, or to tape to the body of the car. Be sure the bolt is tight and the hook is back in the hole. I believe this is grounded here.
It works in my car now, going to keep an eye on it and make sure it's OK!!
After the job is done, band-aids and Neosporin
at the cold heat though... I hate those things, but good to know some people use them
Glad I just borrowed it
Linear Mode
