- Thread starter
- #21
Hope it worked out! And yes, do take that towel with you! I can easily pressure wash the car myself without any leaks or issues! Additionally, it now survives the Houston rain fine, since our move down here from SoCal
DIY: Sunroof Weatherstrip Replacement (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter blklnamru
- Start date
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Pyrenees
SILVER Star
This is an excellent writeup!
I wanted to add my own personal story.... I actually had a very minor leak in my sunroof and fixed it for $10. After a hard rain, some water would puddle in the top where the drain connects (drains were already replaced) and it would very occasionally drip a single drop or two of water directly on my head.
I spent $10 on "gummi pflege stift" rubber treatment, which is also great for keeping your doors from freezing shut. I opened the sunroof and applied this stuff liberally a few times all around. No leaks ever since I did that.
If it doesn't work in the long run I'll refer back here.
I wanted to add my own personal story.... I actually had a very minor leak in my sunroof and fixed it for $10. After a hard rain, some water would puddle in the top where the drain connects (drains were already replaced) and it would very occasionally drip a single drop or two of water directly on my head.
I spent $10 on "gummi pflege stift" rubber treatment, which is also great for keeping your doors from freezing shut. I opened the sunroof and applied this stuff liberally a few times all around. No leaks ever since I did that.
If it doesn't work in the long run I'll refer back here.
How important is uniformity on the outside area? Looking top down at the sunroof, I have a few sections where I can’t tell if it’s too much epoxy or not enough to where the seal doesn’t cleanly meet the edge of the glass. I’m confident there’s epoxy down in there, but unsure if over time water will collect there and work its way down to being a new leak.
My wife and I squeezed with all of our might going around the edges as we applied to work out air bubbles.
My wife and I squeezed with all of our might going around the edges as we applied to work out air bubbles.
- Thread starter
- #25
mine is uneven as well and all is fine! As long as epoxy inside, you should be okay.
For those who’ve done this — does the plastic trim piece against the glass come off? Mine appears to be leaking from that, not the soft rubber gasket. Is there a PN for that or is it part of the glass assembly?
YardPig
SILVER Star
When my sunroof leaked it was the trim to the glass. I carefully masked off the seam between the glass and trim with fine line tape and smeared it with Permatex The Right Stuff. Peeled tape off and problem solved.
The rubber 'gasket' is there to stop major water and wind noise, but water will get past it and leak onto the drip channels and out the sunroof drains front and back.
The glass comes with the trim and I don't believe it is available separately.
The rubber 'gasket' is there to stop major water and wind noise, but water will get past it and leak onto the drip channels and out the sunroof drains front and back.
The glass comes with the trim and I don't believe it is available separately.
^I think that’s what I’ll end up doing. I ordered a new gasket anyways, still beats the almost $700 a glass shop wants to replace the assembly
YardPig
SILVER Star
Be sure to put a smear on the front and back gaps on the trim as well, the trim is actually two pieces a right and left. Nobodies going to see it...
So, there’s no substitute for doing it right…right? But, my sunroof doesn’t open anymore on my 2000 LC and I don’t care enough about that to spend coin on replacing the entire mechanism. Has anyone just sprayed the outside with flexseal?
YardPig
SILVER Star
There is no need to do this. The leak is not from the rubber surround, it is from the hard plastic trim that surrounds the glass. Water sits on the glass and migrates under the plastic and it leaks in the car. This is the case if your sunroof drains are clear and they are not filling up with water and overflowing on your head when your driving. The sunroof glass comes out by removing two pieces of trim that clip onto either side inside, then four bolts and lift it out. You can check the sunroof drains by pouring a bottle of water into the drain channel and see if it escapes out the front and rear of the lower rocker panel areas. It is a good idea if the glass is out to run some weed eater trimmer line down the tubes to clear any debris that has migrated.
YardPig
SILVER Star
Water Leakage ...
I could really use some help from my fellow 100-Series peeps ... My sunroof has been not draining properly. Had drains cleaned out, but had problems with the rear drains and ended-up sealing off my sunroof, to put a stop to water leaks. Unfortunately, I still have dampness down my B-Column. My...
forum.ih8mud.com
I finished the cables/tubes/gasket swap and now my sunroof works perfectly. A couple comments:
While clearing them with trimmer line will address debris, I think the bigger issue is that the tube walls are too thin (and old?) which makes it easy for them to collapse where they bend or meet an errant interior panel. I will be looking at getting a length of tube that has the same inside-diameter and a slightly larger outside-diameter (so a thicker tube).
After having put everything back together I think the rear pair are pinched. But this is only after having put everything back together. While the headliner was down I tested them by pouring water and all four worked fine. Now, only the front ones do. My plan is to splice the two rear tubes where they appear past the headliner as it's too much trouble to take the headliner out. Taking two interior panels off per side at the rear is a much more digestible proposition.
Also, when I put the new gasket on I didn't use any goop or clean off the old stuff. It looks spot-on and has no problem or noises when opening or closing. Getting it seated took some effort though, using the butt-end of a screwdriver handle.
Hi, this is a fantastic write up and pics. Thanks for that. I was watching a few videos of other model owners replacing the seal, and they did not use adhesive on the weather seal, so I was wondering whether it was possible that this job could be done without the adhesive. What are your thoughts on that? Thanks.So since last year November time frame, I've have a leak from my sunroof. After cleaning the drains, the rails, and everything possible, I was able to isolate the issue to a bad weatherstrip. I bought the replacement, but never had the time then since I was T-1 week to leave on my 7k mile road trip from CA to NY and back. I decided to seal the roof with a few good layers painters tape. It didn't look great, but it held up from December till now, in a wide range of weather. Snow, rain, sleet, hail, high winds, sand storms, -20 to 120 degrees. No issues. It's only that last week I had some time to address the problem.
Essentially, what seemed to be happening was once the roof was put into 'tilt' mode, putting in back in 'closed' mode made the strip catch and not close all the way from the rear center. Over time the repeated action of tilt/close/tilt/close started to pull the adhesive portion. This was where the leak was coming from. Since the weatherstrip also seemed to be deteriorating, I felt that it was time to get it all replaced. A call to a few SoCal d(st)ealership, and I decided to do it on my own. They were quoting from $1200-$2700, for replacing the seal!? WTH! Maybe they misunderstood what I was asking, but I was clearly asking for the weatherstrip to be replaced, ONLY.
Anyhow, I sourced the part for sub $50 from an online Toyota store (In Nov) and planned out last weekend to tackle the job. Overall, I think this job took me 3 hours of removal, cleanup, prep and an hour for two separate applications, 2 days to cure after each application to ensure it adhesion, 40 mins for cleaning up the mess and 20 mins to reinstall. Total 5 hours work time, not including cure time. I'm sure most can do it in under that time, but I'm pretty anal when it comes to these things, so spent time doing it the way I would be satisfied with it.
Lessons learned:
1. Know what you're getting yourself into before hand, LOL2. Have all needed items on hand3. Don't over tighten nuts4. Helper would be nice5. Don't make my mistake and remove the sunroof and bracket from rails, but just the sunroof and unbolt from bracket which is still attached to rails. I'll detail it out in pictures, but this part will save you the time in realignment of the sunroof so it sits flush with the roof6. Don't over fill the weatherstrip groove with too much weatherstrip adhesive
Parts needed:
1. 63251-600622. Torx T25 + Phillips/cross-head3. Racket (forget size)4. Goo-gone, or something similar to take of old adhesive5. Weatherstrip adhesive (3m or the like, I used Permatex)6. Blade/pocket knife7. Time & patience8. Paper towelsStep 1: Removal of the Sunroof
I had to take the painters tape off first, which was a PITA. Usually it never leaves any residue, but since I had it on there for a good while in all sorts of weather, it seemed to be baked on. Just made my life harder.I have the T25 and Phillips shown in the photos, but I did *NOT* realize that I can remove the plastic covering around the sunroof and expose the 'golden nut' which would also take the sunroof off, but leave the rail-bracket on. Do that instead. Once I undid everything, I popped the sunroof up and forward a few inches so I can remove it from the outside. Make sure it doesn't slide down/fall, or you'll have bigger problems.
Step 2: Taking off the seal and prep for new seal
Pictured is the area where the weatherstrip was easily coming apart from the sunroof assembly. I guess in hindsight, my first step to remedy could have been just pumping it with the weatherstrip adhesive and letting it cure and putting it back on, however, that would have been a short term fix till issue resurfaced.Pulling the seal off, I decided to cut it so it is easier to pull off. Noticed that there is metal in the OEM strip which keeps the structural integrity of the shape I guess. Obviously, I didn't cut the replacement to see, but since OEM, I'm guessing it has it too. Note: that there doesn't seem to be a lot of residue from the adhesive, meaning, a light amount on the new strip should be sufficient.The weatherstrip seal also had to 'clips' on the front L & R sides to hold the hold in place. Make sure to loosen those so they are not damaged. These will help keep the strip in place when you put it back, so they cure in the correct position.Initially, after liberally applying the goo-gone and letting it sit for a few minutes, I started to scrape off the old adhesive with a pocketknife wrapped with paper towels. However, since that was taking too long and required multiple passes of the knife, I decided to use the curved, yet dull portion from the back of the pocket knife.It's also at this time that I accidentally popped off one of the sunroof black plastic molds which exposed the 'gold nut'. Had I seen this, installation (and removal!) would have been so much easier. I decided to take it off now, and go screw the bracket back into the rails, since it was going to be easier to screw in now. Alignment will be done once the sunroof was seated and screwed back in place.Step 3: Application of adhesive
I did a quick mock up with the new weatherstrip to see how installation plays out. I found out that I Had about 4 inches of extra length!? I couldn't figure it out... started to panic and wonder if I had purchased the right weatherstrip. Turns out I did, and the reason why I had extra was due to me pulling the strip as I installed it. I took it all off, and re-seated it without any pulling but just pushing down. Much better and it fit really snug and well.The tube of weatherstrip adhesive I bought had a really wide mouth, so I decided to pinch it together with pliers so I could just push it into the groove and apply.I split the adhesive job into half, and did one side only. Filled the weatherstrip, let it sit for a few minutes (per instructions from tube) and then proceeded to seat it on the sunroof and push it down completely. Immediately, I saw the weatherstrip start to slide back up in certain spots. I didn't get it... I thought it was due to me filling up the groove with too much adhesive, as it was also started to ooze out in certain areas. Oh well. I thought about taking it off, cleaning it up and starting again, but I wouldn't be able to clean the inside of the weatherstrip well, so decided to continue. Started doing the other side, filling it with less adhesive, but saw that it was doing the same. $%^& I thought.Couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, so I went back and started to apply a lot of pressure and hold on all of the areas that were coming up and started to hear popping sounds. Total sigh of relief... they were just air-pockets/bubbles. Went back and quickly, firmly and slowly applied constant HEAVY pressure on the seal and pop pop pop all of the weatherstrip started getting seated well and looked great. I then tightened the front weatherstrip guide 'clips' and let it cure for 2 days. I could have waited less but things always came up, life you know.I came back and reapplied the adhesive to the area behind the groove but between the weatherstrip and sunroof as an additional bond/precaution. Didn't necessarily have to do this, but I felt like while I had it out, I would take care of it. This way, if the seal does come apart slowly overtime, the secondary seal would prevent from totally coming apart and letting water seep in between weatherstrip and sunroof. My logic at least. Water, regardless will still be able to enter, as it is designed to drain from the 4 drainage pipes in the corners of the sunroof assembly.A few days later I did some spot checking to make sure no visible spots (from the second application) that had missed areas/bubbles that needed to be addressed. Nothing. Good to go!
Step 4: Clean up and installation
Re-enter Goo-gone. Applied liberally to the top portion of the sunroof, to clean it as well as remove all the additional adhesive which oozed out onto the 'wrong' (top) side of the sunroof.Spent about 1 hour during this cleanup portion. During this time I saw that one of the corners I wasn't able to completely remove all the bubbles from or at least that I noticed. Due to this, it slid up a little. Kinda annoyed myself that I didn't notice it sooner and address it. Oh well. It would have been hard to notice anyway, since installation is happening on the underside of the sunroof, and it needs to stay that way for it to cure properly. Otherwise the sides would get additional pressure due to the curved glass of sitting right side up and possibly unseat the center parts of the seal.Cleaned up, the 'mistake' of one sides sliding up (when right side up, it would look to be sliding down) didn't seem too bad! All perspective I guess. However, everything else seemed to be seated perfectly, or to my liking!Finally, the time came to re-install the sunroof, and while it was a piece of cake. Re-aligning was a PITA. Furthermore, it was about 1am, and I was going out wheeling the next morning. In that excitement... I over-tightened one of the 'gold nuts' and it snapped right off. %^&*. Really!? I come all this way and make a rookie mistake? Well $h!t. Nothing I can do now. Roof is aligned. Seated well. Opens and closes fine. It also barely moves if I try to push it up (this was also stupid, I shouldn't have done that - in case something else happened). I haven't decide how I will replace that nut just for peace of mind. Maybe have a friend just weld that area? Not sure. I don't have welding skills so will pass for now.Real test will be tomorrow when I test with some water... if that passes then will take a hose to it. If that passes will take it to the car wash for a torture test. So far, its passed the first two tests really well so will take it to the car wash sometime soon! Didn't see a drop coming into car, other than the standard water going between the weatherstrip and body and heading to the drains! Good deal, and all for sub $100!Hope this helps any of you interested, or thinking about replacing your sunroof weatherstrip seal. Definitely doable, however, learn from my mistakes.
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Looks like I can only add 5 pics per post? lol. I'm just going to add a bunch of posts, if you have any questions, quote the pic and I'll try to answer to best of my ability.
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You can always try and if you don’t like the results redo it with adhesive. I just did this, and I think the adhesive also works as a water barrier. The seal itself is not so tight that it would keep water from passing through the channel.
Great write-up, this will surely help anyone in the same boat !
Well, I finally got around to ordering the seal and did this job yesterday. Thanks to all the information on this site, including the "Golden Nut" tip, I was able to get the whole job done in about 1.5 hours (I did not use adhesive) including vacuuming and cleaning the sunroof tracks and applying some new white lithium grease to the tracks. A couple of things I noticed that may help others. On my replacement seal there were 4 white dots that indicated where the corners of the seal are, so lining those up helped with the alignment of the new seal. I used the handle of a large screwdriver and "rolled" it over the area where the new seal seats in the groove while applying downward pressure and this helped to evenly seat the new seal. Finally, after everything was in place I gripped the seal in my hand with my fingers pointed towards the bottom of the seal and my palms at the top of the seal and sort of rolled the seal up and back while gripping with my fingers. This helped to mate the upper seal to the plastic trim around the glass. Thanks again to everyone who contributed here, it was very helpful. Oh, one last thing, after I reinstalled the sunroof it made a squeaking rubber noise when the back of the sunroof closed against the roof of the vehicle. So I took that opportunity to apply some silicon lubricant on a rag to the new seal. In hindsight I should have done this before reinstalling the sunroof.
Question on this. My ‘98 calls for seal part 63251-52020. The new seal has a section where there s a wider flap. The total length of this wider flap is longer than the left or right short edges of the glass but the flap is shorter than the front or back she’s of the glass. It’s between two dots on the seal so it has to go on the front or the rear edge.
My old seal did not have this wide flap.
Does this wide flap go on the from edge or the back edge of the glass?
My old seal did not have this wide flap.
Does this wide flap go on the from edge or the back edge of the glass?
On mine that wider part of the seal is on the front of the sunroof. I just ran out and checked.
