Dear All,
Happy New Year to you all and lets hope 2022 brings more joy than 2021.
I've been trying to get my sound system working properly and following recommendation from here I got the Kenwood radio that Richard recommended, excellent, works brilliantly and as he says colour codes to match the green of my (now much brighter) all LED dash.

However rubbish reception on FM and investigating I find the wire from the RH window aerial has been connected to a piece of copper wire running up over the inside of the rear headliner. Looking at the window where the wire that goes to the amplifier should be connected, I see that the connection is broken, there's no wire on the window but there does appear to be a place where there once was a soldered/welded connection.

My question is is it safe to try to solder a wire back onto the window?

Will I end up damaging the window? will it crack? Has anyone done this before?

An experience / advice greatly appreciated.

Do you have the one on the other side? If it originally had the Diversity radio, there will be an aerial on both sides, one doing FM only, the other doing FM and AM so there will have been two aerial cables at the head unit. If that is the case, use the other one. Although a '95 may not have had both.

I suspect you'll have difficulty trying to solder to the glass, it will conduct the heat away so you'll never get a decent connection. You could try using some of the silver impregnated epoxy used to repair broken tracks in heated rear screens. A piece of wire connected to the aerial input of the amplifier should work as well as the on-glass aerial as long as it isn't shielded from the outside world by the bodywork.

yes i have done this and you can soldier onto the window just use a standard soldiering iron

Dear Both,
Thnaks for your replies, i didn't know conducive glue existed! I've ordered some and will have a go at the soldering whilst it ships over.
Regards
Paul C

PC38 wrote:

Dear Both,
Thnaks for your replies, i didn't know conducive glue existed! I've ordered some and will have a go at the soldering whilst it ships over.
Regards
Paul C

How did you get on Paul?
I've knocked the tab off the glass on the driver's side (rhd) removing trim, now radio is rubbish.
2001 DHSE, Arial both sides and original sound system.

Dear Chris,
Not well, i tried hot soldering it which didn't go well, couldn't get the solder to attach to the metal strip in the window and in sanding it down to get a better contact inadvertantly removed too much of the interior black masking paint, so now from the outside theres a blank patch visible. i'll have to paint it back again.

However Richards suggestion did work, simply took a peice of 13 amp domestic wire, wedged it between the glass and the metl bodywork, hidden extrnaly behind the black masking paint and internaly behind the headlining and the D pillar trim, duck taped in, connected up and it works a treat!

Oh, goodo!
Only just seen your post and just yesterday I ordered some conductive glue stuff off eBay. I'll try the glue when it comes and update.

The conductive paste didn't work.
It has no 'glue' properties regardless of the snake oil words used by eBay sellers.

I've used it to repair broken heated window elements before, though I'd describe it more as paint than glue personally. Is Richard's suggested fix not possible?

The stuff I've used in the past came from RS but it seems that it is no longer available in a small pot only https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/adhesives/9185009. A bit pricey......

This stuff was like cement mortar and dried like it too. What I've done is use a couple of magnets, one for each 'button' to hold them tight against the glass and carefully put tigerseal adhesive over and around them using a wooden coffee stirrer stick. That, once cured, has worked, no more crackling and I suspect the rubbery glue to be very durable. Can't see the repair either once the side parcel shelf support is refitted.