Defrost Switch Busted

[Baskinator]

My defrost switch/button on the dash has been broken since I got my Eagle, and I'm not exactly sure how to fix it, aside from taking the whole thing out and putting a new one in there. I was thinking I could epoxy something onto it and hope that it's strong enough to use. It needs to work for inspection.

I did take a pair of pliers and tried wiggling it to see if it would turn on. A light switched on behind it, but no air was blowing at the windshield with the fan turned on. My A/C was removed by the PO, so I'm hoping this has nothing to do with that. Any thoughts or suggestions?

[ammachine390]

The defroster switch/button is for the electric rear defroster grid on the rear windshield.

The front defroster is just the regular heater/ac fan blowing onto the front windshield. On the heater control unit, slide the top slider to the defrost logo, and put the fan on. Thats all there is for the front defroster. On mine, it directs air up to the window a lot better if I close all the vents.

[Baskinator]

Crud, maybe something's disconnected behind the dash then because I could not feel any air moving at the dash vents with the fan on and switched to defrost. The fan works fine, and blows air out of all the other vents (though not always the temp that's selected of course).

They would probably fail me the way it is now. I need to take a better look at it and read a little more in my TSM. I saw it had diagrams of how the air flows with every selection and configuration.

[ammachine390]

The fan works fine, and blows air out of all the other vents (though not always the temp that's selected of course).

Do your vents in the center of the dashboard have an open/close switch? And do you have a parcel shelf with air vents. If yes, close the vents in the center, and each of the parcel shelf outlets can close to. You turn them clockwise to close them, you just spin the middle part of it. Once all the other vents are closed, it should blow out the defrost.

[Baskinator]

Tried closing the vents (it has a parcel shelf with vents, and the vents in the center are there with one broken), but still no air coming from the defrost. Still have to take a look at the tsm, had a long day.

[Baskinator]

Forgot about this post, but I did find out what was wrong before inspection. I removed the heater controls from the center cluster and one of the cables had come detached from the top heater switch. It was sort of seized up, making the thing hard to pull. I pulled the cable into the defrost position and epoxied the cable to its post, and I believe I attempted to lubricate the cable a bit. Haven't tried moving the switch from its position since putting it back together, but it does its job for now and defrosts the windshield perfectly fine.

[vangremlin]

Good to hear you found a fix.  Its especially good to have a working defroster this time of year!

[carnuck]

I manually switch mine by reaching under the dash. PO disconnected them when they had the heater poorly fixed (I had to drop it and put in a new core) For the rear defrost I run my paint peeler (looks like a hair dryer) with my power inverter. Whole car thaws out in minutes.