ToyotaDon
I am here
My defrost switch wouldn't stay on, it didn't click when pushed in. It's not too big a deal in CA, but we sometimes get frosty/foggy mornings here in the San Joaquin Valley. 
Anyway, I decided it was time to do something about it, so here goes my repair with pics.
It's the rounded switch that looks like this:
Someone asked in another thread about replacing the light bulbs on this style, so I'll also detail that here. You can see the 2 round, gray pieces which are the bulb sockets. You can also see a crack in the housing which may be contributing to my problem.
Simply remove those sockets with a small screwdriver.
The one with the white cover illuminates the amber light which shows the switch is on, the clear bulb is for illumination when the dash lights are on.
I pulled the white housing off the the connector end, but that got me nowhere.
It took some prying, and I kind of damaged the little tabs, but finally slid the housing apart. You can see my pick in the slot where the tabs are located.
Now to the part I was most concerned about. This is the part that provides a "detent" for the switch. It's actually a little mechanism that clicks through a sequence of locked & unlocked positions.
It was all in place and seemed to be functioning properly, as long as I held it down, the switch would click and lock on. So, I started theorizing what would cause it to not work when the switch was all assembled. The mechanism tended to lift out of position when I operated the switch, so I though maybe the housing wasn't holding it in place well enough.
To cure any issues with the housing, I went ahead and super glued where the crack was.
Then I used a small piece of electrical tape on top of the detent mechanism. This will help to hold it down, as well as fill the space between it and the housing.
As I was sliding everything back together, I tried actuating the switch, and it clicked properly, so it looked like we were good to go. Once it was all back together, I found that I had to push the switch a little harder to get it to click. This may have been the issue all along (that I just needed to use a little more force), but it is working fine for now. Maybe it would have been better to add some spacers to the back of the switch, so there wouldn't be any flex, but all is well until it quits again.
Off
On
Anyway, I decided it was time to do something about it, so here goes my repair with pics.
It's the rounded switch that looks like this:
Someone asked in another thread about replacing the light bulbs on this style, so I'll also detail that here. You can see the 2 round, gray pieces which are the bulb sockets. You can also see a crack in the housing which may be contributing to my problem.
Simply remove those sockets with a small screwdriver.
The one with the white cover illuminates the amber light which shows the switch is on, the clear bulb is for illumination when the dash lights are on.
I pulled the white housing off the the connector end, but that got me nowhere.
It took some prying, and I kind of damaged the little tabs, but finally slid the housing apart. You can see my pick in the slot where the tabs are located.
Now to the part I was most concerned about. This is the part that provides a "detent" for the switch. It's actually a little mechanism that clicks through a sequence of locked & unlocked positions.
It was all in place and seemed to be functioning properly, as long as I held it down, the switch would click and lock on. So, I started theorizing what would cause it to not work when the switch was all assembled. The mechanism tended to lift out of position when I operated the switch, so I though maybe the housing wasn't holding it in place well enough.
To cure any issues with the housing, I went ahead and super glued where the crack was.
Then I used a small piece of electrical tape on top of the detent mechanism. This will help to hold it down, as well as fill the space between it and the housing.
As I was sliding everything back together, I tried actuating the switch, and it clicked properly, so it looked like we were good to go. Once it was all back together, I found that I had to push the switch a little harder to get it to click. This may have been the issue all along (that I just needed to use a little more force), but it is working fine for now. Maybe it would have been better to add some spacers to the back of the switch, so there wouldn't be any flex, but all is well until it quits again.
Off
On
