Mike's 85 FWD 5dr Tercel

[Notmikeb]

My rear defroster has never worked and this morning was a frosty one. I decided to chase down the issue and found some previous owner had cut the wiring to it for some reason and removed a good chunk of it!! I still had the wiring from the switch to the relay and from the relay back to the defroster. The power feed to the circuit breaker slot and from the breaker slot to the relay was clipped and gone. The circuit breaker was also missing. I'm assuming there was a short somewhere in the system and rather than properly fix it they removed the offending portion. Lame.

I tested the switch wiring and the circuit from the relay back to the defroster and didn't find any shorts so I decided to pull power from the now unused a/c clutch circuit as it was already wired into a 30A fuse. Everything seems to work fine and I've now got 12+ volts at the defroster grid with the switch on. I'm assuming it will defrost properly now but we'll see in the morning.

Any potential issues I'm overlooking using a fuse in place of a circuit breaker? The wire leading back seemed to be at least 16ga and from what I've read should be able to handle 30a at 12v without burning up. Seems like the original circuit breaker was rated for 20a but the wiring diagram for later models says 30a. I could always replace the fuse with a 20a one if that seems like inadequate protection.

[Petros]

It might also be that most or all of the heating elements on the glass are damaged. Often the individual heating elements on the window get scratch or damaged (from shifting cargo or pets or something in the rear area, or perhaps from closing the hatch on too much cargo).

If this happens any undamaged elements will still work, best way to find the non-working ones is when there is frost on the rear window, and you have the power supply to the rear window defroster issue resolved, is to see which of the element strips will melt off the frost. Carefully inspect the non-working ones and usually you can find the scratch or cut in the element, mark it with a felt pen so you can find it again later.

If only one or two are not working you can ignore it and just live with it. But if very many are damaged it will not work where there are broken element strips on the rear glass.

there is a repair kit you can buy to fix the damage elements, you glue on a short length of conductor across the scratch on the element.

OTOH, if most or all of the elements are damaged, it might be easier to replace the rear glass with a good working heater element.

My daily driver has about half of the heater strips working, I have just lived with it because we do not get frost that often where we live. When we do I just leave it on longer to warm up more of the glass, eventually all of it melts off. Enough of the glass if frost free soon enough I can see out the rear, just not all of it.

Good luck.

[Notmikeb]

I'll check in the morning to make sure all are working. They seemed to be in great shape.

[Notmikeb]

Hmmm. Already got a decent amount of fog on the glass tonight so I tried it out and...... It still does nothing.

The only thing I can think is that it must have a bad ground? I didn't check the ground side for continuity to the chassis but I was seeing 12v when checking between the two connectors so I have power there. It's just not heating up. Does anyone know where the ground side attaches to the body? Looks like it goes up into the headliner but it's hard to tell.

[Petros]

it should be an easy check to see which side supplies the power, and which is the ground side, and than check for continuity to ground from the terminal. If there is no continuity you can always run a temporary ground wire to the chassis and see if the element heats up. If so, than you know the problem is on the ground side. You can verify all of the strips are working as well. At worst you can still use it with the temp ground.

It might be possible that all of the heating elements are damaged, you have to inspect each one very closely for scratches (a large magnifying glass helps). If you have a good ground that is about the only other thing that would not allow it heat up.

[lannvouivre]

Your hatch glass's refusal to function properly is a sign of disrespect.

Take a hammer and beat it until it realizes its grave error.

[Notmikeb]

Your hatch glass's refusal to function properly is a sign of disrespect.

Take a hammer and beat it until it realizes its grave error.

I'll keep that as Plan B for now I think

[Notmikeb]

Bad ground. Should be working fine now. I'll see what happens next frost.

[Petros]

Your hatch glass's refusal to function properly is a sign of disrespect.

Take a hammer and beat it until it realizes its grave error.

along the lines of modern management theory: "the beatings will continue until moral improves"

The term for a piece of machinery, such as a car, is to "beat it into submission"

all machinery MUST beat and bent to the will of man, ...or there will be very grave consequences.

[in this case "man" means humanity, or man kind}

[Notmikeb]

Happy rust abatement day!!

The only two spot with any real rust on this car is the lower drivers side fender and the corner of the hatch. Decided to do some fixing in preparation of our slushy salty roads this winter.

The fender didn't seem too bad at all. Even when I wire-wheeled down every bit of orange brown I could find, there were only a few pinholes in the sheet metal at the bottom corner. There was a fair amount of gross dirt packed behind that section so I imagine water just collects in it and sits.

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I sprayed a ton of rustoleum paint in the area behind it that I can't reach with the sander so hopefully that stops the rust on the backside.

Busted out the sander and the bondo and went to town plugging them up and evening it out. Will hit with primer tonight after I sand it flush and hopefully find a can of spray paint close enough to the original color that will blend.

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Haven't wire-wheeled the hatch yet but I think that is just surface rust.

[Petros]

the only place where mine has rust is right there at the part of the fender. I am thinking of taking it off, fixing it like you did, and perhaps trowel on some thick sealant like roofing cement on the inside, even fill the space entirely once the fender is back on (leaving a drain of course), and than put the liner back in it.

[Mark]

The fenders on my wagon rusted out over the wheels and I replaced them with non-rusty ones off a parts car a while ago. I sprayed the inside of them with undercoating before installing them. I don't know why they put that lip on the inside of the fenders. It's like it was designed to catch dirt and mud. 2 days ago I ran my fingers along these lips and they were completely full of caked-on mud. I've been wanting to brush on chainsaw lube in this area (especially on the rear wheel-wells since that part of the body can't be replaced) to help protect from rust, but we've had so much rain and wind lately that they're too wet to bother putting any oil on just yet.

[Notmikeb]

Finished the rear hatch corner. It really wasn't bad at all. Just wire-wheeled it down to bare metal and leveled out the pits with a layer of bondo. Prime sand prime sand prime sand paint!

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Color isn't exact but it's close. Will definitely be noticeable on the fender since I'm painting that whole thing. I took the opportunity to level out the surface and smooth out some various paint chips and dings with the bondo but that means more painting.

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[Notmikeb]

Well the fender looks great other than the completely wrong shade of white. It looked much closer under the fluorescent lights at the auto parts store. Oh well. I found a site online selling the correct paint code in an aerosol can so hopefully that will be better. I probably won't remove it again, just paint it in place.

I honestly think I like this white better. If it wasn't such a PITA I'd paint the whole car this color. Or hot rod satin black

[Notmikeb]

So I noticed a few weeks ago that my coolant reservoir was a little low and topped it off. Chocked it up to air burping out of the lines since I replaced the thermostat a month prior. Looked again this morning and it was empty. Topped off the radiator and the tank and made a mental note to diagnose a bit when I got home today. Looked all around the engine compartment and could find no signs of leakage so I thought I'd pull the plugs. Cylinders one and two had very clean plugs while three and four were slightly dirtier. Tried looking at piston tops to see if they were steam cleaned but I couldn't get a good enough view to tell one way or another. Compression test showed all cylinders at 180ish except cylinder 1 which was at 165 (still good though). Oil looks clean and clear but that was just checking the dipstick and oil cap, I didn't drain it.

Seems like a slight head gasket leak I guess? I would guess that the car "consumed" half a radiator overflow tank's worth of coolant over the last 1000 miles or so. My inclination is to drive it until it gets bad but on the other hand it would royally suck to get stuck on my way to or from work in rush hour DC traffic if it suddenly decides to fail completely. On these engines, is there usually a "grace period" where it is obviously getting bad before it blows or does it usually just typically go from running good to "smoky compressionless mess" instantly?