Blocked drain holes now sunroof wont open
#1
Blocked drain holes now sunroof wont open
Ok I have had the clogged up drain holes for about a year and to top it off the car has been sitting outside for that same amount of time since I had an accident that caused major damage to the front end. I have been slowly putting the car back together since the summer due to time constraints. I just switched out the shocks,springs, rotors and brake pads and noticed when I jacked up the rear drivers side that lots of water began to drain out of the front passenger side. Of course I knew this was due to the clogged drain holes. Since I already had the back seats off I proceeded to remove the head liner and see what could be done. I removed the sunroof motor and it does spin but once its back in place it wont turn the gears or whatever is up there in the brown metal tubing. My guess is that its rusted and the grease has just dried up on the moving parts that makes it slide. The tilt doesn't even work so I'm just trying to figure out what the best course of action is at this point. Am I going to have to remove the whole sunroof and lube everything up before re-installing things?
#4
Well I removed the sunroof glass and can see that all the grease to move the parts are dried out. I sprayed some pb blaster on all the bolts and parts I could reach and removed the wind deflector with the hopes of removing the cable guide casing so I could get to the parts of the cable that is not visible but I couldnt figure out how to remove the screw thats farthest to the back and hidden by the rails. I'm working off this PDF that I found in the forum but its for and older model year and some of the steps are the same but some are different.
#5
Lexus Champion
go ahead, while you have everything open and detached, and verify that the motor works when detached from the gearing, hook the electrical line of motor up and try the sunroof functions, that way you know for sure the problem is in the mechanical section.
#7
Got the whole thing apart after fighting with the drive rail stopper for a while. It was stuck on there pretty well. I removed the cable from the first casing and used a lighter to melt the dried up grease that was hard as heck. Now I get to the second casing and the cable is stuck in there pretty good. I've been trying to stand on the exposed part of the cable and yanking the casing off but it will not budge and I'm leery about pulling too hard bcuz i don't want to snap the cable. So this is where I stand as of now. I'm going to eat something and then have another go at it.
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#8
Well I still can't get the cable out of the cable housing. I actually heated the housing with a torch to heat up the dried up grease inside but It still wont come out. I'm thinking of sawing the housing in sections to try to remove it but am not sure if thats wise. The housing has to be reattached to the drive rail to make everything work properly.
#10
Well I did call up a junkyard and got a quote for $100 for the whole assembly so if it doesn't work out I'll def be going that route, but if I can get this cable out I can use that money for some of the other work I have planned for the car. Maybe spacers
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BTC89LS400
LS - 3rd Gen (2001-2006)
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12-17-18 09:44 AM