I bought my 87 4Runner last year out of Eugene Oregon. Came with a sweet stack of receipts. In going through all of them I find out that it was delivered to and Purchased in Tuscon, AZ, where it lived until 2006.

So there shouldn't be anything bad right? A/C works great, minimal rust, my LPSV doesn't look like barnacles are growing off of it. But I finally found a downside. The 19 years of Arizona sun killed the defroster grid. Everything looks intact. But after ripping apart my entire tailgate yesterday, following the FSM checking the switch, relay, wiring and the grid, (of course they put it in that order) I rewire everything (broken wires found) cleaned up all the connections AND nothing!

At this point I am frustrated to hell bc I just went through everything and there is no way it could be the window. I have seen pics of other windows on here all rusty and THEIR defrost works. Dangit. So I call the junkyard in Olympia, the guy there has 3 windows, and he'll let me try them out til I found one that worked. I got one that now has voltage moving across the grid so I am hoping it will work, I will findout Friday morning.

I guess if you live in Tuscon, you could gave a rat's behind about rear defrost. But up in Washington a little different story.

I never thought I would figure out a downside to an Arizona raised rig, but thats as close as you will come I think.

Now its almost time to tackle my Cruise control. Back to the Search button!!

 

look like your truck has been all over the western US... lol at least it shouldn't have any rust

 

the defroster was probably never used here in good old AZ

 

did you call blacklake auto in oly? they seem to have lots of yota parts.. i still need to get down there to get the power window relay for my 89... good luck wiht the new glass.

 

when i was livin in scottsdale i went up to cave creek and there was snow!!!! i brought a truck back to MA from apache junction. only thing wrong was the cracked dash!!!

 

thats mostly what we get here,especially if you park your ride outside with no window protection

 

I don't even bother with my defroser.... i'd never use it anyway.... just make sure you never tint the window..... or you willbe sorry...

 

How did you check for voltage moving across the grid? Just by touching a voltmeter to it?

 

Thanks. Yeah Black Lake is who I called. David there is a pretty cool guy. He let me take the windows out to the truck to hook em up to test voltage on em. I have been there a bunch of times, but their stock of 4Runners is getting picked clean.

Thats probably where I will end up getting thirds from next summer. (unless Junkers is upgrading then.... Road trip!!)

All Toyota up in Buckley just gets a pricey sometimes, Black lake is fairly cheap.

And talk to A.Wilson013 about the power window relay. He just went there yesterday for the same thing. Either the relays were no good or Alex has something else wrong in his wiring scheme.

And really, a defroster? I just didn't want those guys in the southwest thinking they had all the pristine yotas. It cost me 50 bucks to fix it!!

 

In the FSM it says with the ignition on and the defroster turned on, put a piece of foil on each probe and work around the window. If a line on the grid says 10 volts, then abruptly goes to 0, then that's where the break is. I was able to get betweem 4 and 6 down every line of the grid. They say 5 is a good line. My old window had a "break" every line, even though you couldn't see them. But they were consistent spots all over the window. It just made it hard to believe it was every line bc you could not see one break in it.

But looking at the window I got you could tell the difference of the color of the grid. The new one is much shinier and less corroded. Sucks too, overall the old window was in awesome shape.

 

I do have one of those as well.

 

I live in Tucson and I have vehicles that old that the defrosters work fine on. My guess is that it got scratched thru or cut when someone removed window tint.

 

Its never had tint, and I couldn't see any cuts in it. It just looked corroded, which is weird bc the bottom rails are spotless. Who knows. I just wanted to bring down the Arizonians.

Honestly, I am just jealous of how clean the Arizona rigs are. At least I got one to revel in my own jealousy!!

 

I wish my rig was from AZ. Its a damn Canadian 4runner, so guess what? No A/C, but the heater works great.

 

we'll take A/C over 4 wheels and an engine in Phoenix, with 115+ summers its a necessity here!

 

Good tip! I will remember to try this first. Going in the order the FSM recommends is a little Magellan-like. That would be the last thing broken I would need to fix. Except for the muffler of course. Then either something else will take a dive or I can spend it on fun stuff.

 

10.5 months of drizzle?
we get all 4 seasons bud..
you're thinking of seattle, and anything next to the pugot sound..

 

The main issue I saw living in Willcox(eastern AZ) is the temp extremes, we have snow and 105 temps. Plus 4200 ft elevation. So seals tend to dry out more. More on motorcycles that are not used.

 

Which is exactly where the OP is from.

Alex

 

I prefer all 4 seasons!