Rear defogger not working, has 14v

[Twinsoffroad]

So after days of searching I can’t seem to find a solution. I have a 2004 Suburban Z71, recently purchased, and on the tailgate the driver side defogger tab was broken off the window. So I buy the permatex tab glue, glue it back on and it is rock solid. I then go to turn on my defoggers and bam, the tailgate doesn’t work. Here is what I’ve done so far-

Fuse and relay is good, the mirrors work fine. Also my rear wiper DOES work, as I see many others with this issue also have rear wiper issues.

I have 14v at the passenger side tab, and 14v all over the grid lines checking at about 10 places.

I have 14v between both connectors too. 0v at the driver side.

What baffles me is I have 14v on the grid but no heat. I also checked my connector between the tailgate and body under the rubber boot, it looks factory new. No burnt areas like many people also have.

Any ideas to help?

 

[MassHoe04]

My gut is telling me bad/missing ground or the new glued connection is not good.

You say you have voltage across the grid, so I would go back to my hunch on bad/missing ground connection.

Maybe this will help. It is from my 2004 FSM, but should be the same.
FSM identifies the required ground to be located behind the Right Rear quarter panel...

 

[Twinsoffroad]

My gut is telling me bad/missing ground or the new glued connection is not good.

You say you have voltage across the grid, so I would go back to my hunch on bad/missing ground connection.

Maybe this will help. It is from my 2004 FSM, but should be the same.
FSM identifies the required ground to be located behind the Right Rear quarter panel...

Thank you for this, I found out my permatex glue is not conductive. If I hold a small wire directly from the tab to the copper grid lines I can feel it’s start to warm up almost immediately. Time to redo this with a silver epoxy, don’t want to risk shattering the window with solder.