I have a 93 4RunnerThe tailgate window defroster has not been working since I've owned it. I finally got up the gumption to take off the rear panel and have a look inside and discovered that the wires leading to the rear window are broken. I have no idea what to call the wiring harness that I would need to replace in order to fix the problem. Anyone got any ideas on how to fix this problem?

On a side note, I can't figure out how to get the plastic cover off where the wiring enters the tailgate on the bottom driver's side of the tailgate.

 

solder the wire back together together - keep the solder and overlap as short as possible because if a wire is going to break again it will be at the solder

does the window "roll" down on teh 2nd gens? if so, make sure the wire is out of the way when the window goes down. You could also just replace those 2 wires, but the wires are a special multi-strand type wire with many, many fine strands so it can flex repeated times without breaking.

 

I think the '93 is a 3rd gen. And yes, it does roll down. I'm concerned that a solder splice won't hold very long because of the movement, but I'll give it a try.

 

I agree, the better repair would be to replace the entire wire piece, but finding the super-fine strand wire might be a bit tough - - my rear defroster doesn't work either but I think the grid is just broken

 

Does anyone have any advice on removing the plastic cover?

 

Broken defroster wires are comon on 2nd gen 4Runners. I owned a 93 for 5 years and I think I resoldered my wires about 3-4 times. Not hard to do and it doesn't take much time. And you should remove the tailgate cover and lube the window mechanism about once a year anyway.