Moonroof not opening (1 Viewer)

[nothinbutnoodle]

Hi all - just brought home an ‘05 LC. Seller told me the moonroof motor was bad. He had unplugged it to prevent anyone from trying to open it accidentally. Of course, the first thing I did in my garage was plug it in and see what was what. Sure enough, the glass doesn’t budge (but it’s trying to). I opened up the housing, pulled the motor down to inspect. With the wires all connected, and the gear exposed I pressed the slide and tilt buttons to see what I could do. All buttons work except the tilt ‘down’ button. My question is, do I have a bad motor or do I have a bad tilt switch? My moonroof is closed but the seal isn’t good enough to ride in rain, so this needs to be fixed. Thanks for any help!

 

[ramangain]

Have you tried to see if any of the pins to the motor plug get +12V when you press the tilt switch? That should answer your question.

 

[Ayune]

Motor sounds good, but the spiral cables are likely seized due to the hardening of the factory lube. It’s a common failure mode for our sunroofs if they’re not operated frequently.

If the seal is bad you can remove only the glass panel by pulling off the four trim pieces, removing the four gold nuts, and lifting off the glass. Search here for threads And you’ll find lots of tips for seal replacement.

Re-lubing the cables is a more involved process that requires removing the headliner and sunroof mechanism, but sounds necessary if you want an operating sunroof. Again, search for threads to get a better idea of what’s involved.

 

[nothinbutnoodle]

Have you tried to see if any of the pins to the motor plug get +12V when you press the tilt switch? That should answer your question.

Thank you very much for your insight. I just tried this and found no additional power being supplied to the pins when the various buttons were depressed. There is certainly power getting to it and with the motor attached I get movement, but I’m not recognizing any change in power supply per your suggestion (motor disconnected). I wonder if there’s another way to test the switch?

 

[nothinbutnoodle]

Motor sounds good, but the spiral cables are likely seized due to the hardening of the factory lube. It’s a common failure mode for our sunroofs if they’re not operated frequently.

If the seal is bad you can remove only the glass panel by pulling off the four trim pieces, removing the four gold nuts, and lifting off the glass. Search here for threads And you’ll find lots of tips for seal replacement.

Re-lubing the cables is a more involved process that requires removing the headliner and sunroof mechanism, but sounds necessary if you want an operating sunroof. Again, search for threads to get a better idea of what’s involved.

Thank you! I think I see what you’re talking about. The white/yellowish lube around the spiral cables does feel hardened. I attached a picture of where I am. Have you dealt with this before? I still can’t figure out why I get movement on the motor with the pressing of three of the four buttons. Again, only the ‘tilt down’ button isn’t working. How difficult is the re-lubing process? Thanks again. Sincerely appreciate your insights.

 

[Ayune]

Thank you! I think I see what you’re talking about. The white/yellowish lube around the spiral cables does feel hardened. I attached a picture of where I am. Have you dealt with this before? I still can’t figure out why I get movement on the motor with the pressing of three of the four buttons. Again, only the ‘tilt down’ button isn’t working. How difficult is the re-lubing process? Thanks again. Sincerely appreciate your insights.

View attachment 2353687

There is a computer involved, so perhaps it won’t tilt down until it knows you’ve tilted up (via motor resistance at the end of travel). At this point I wouldn’t sweat the knob operation too much.

 

[3_puppies]

hard to see in the pic, is the forward spiral cable all munched up where the gear would have spun on it?

 

[nothinbutnoodle]

hard to see in the pic, is the forward spiral cable all munched up where the gear would have spun on it?

Yes it is.

 

[Wilsil]

Yes it is.

Did you got this sorted in the end?

 

[G-Cat]

For anyone searching, there is a very in-depth YouTube video of the process of removing, cleaning and re-lubing the spiral cables on a 3rd Gen 4Runner.

 

[Malleus]

There is a computer involved, so perhaps it won’t tilt down until it knows you’ve tilted up (via motor resistance at the end of travel). At this point I wouldn’t sweat the knob operation too much.

@Ayune hit the nail on the head. The way the controller works is to sense the overload current at the switch. If the panel is not in one of the extreme positions, neither of the switches see overcurrent conditions and thus both will function (of course, you can't move the roof up/down while it's sliding and vice versa). You can unplug the motor fomnr the PCB and put 12VDC to the terminals. If it turns, you're good. If not, it's dead. If it does turn, the problem is nearly guaranteed to be stuck cables.

 

[Wilsil]

Thanks G-Cat, saved it for review later when I get to have a look at my moonroof issue.

 

[bridgeburner]

Am I alone in hating sunroofs/moonroofs?

I always try to avoid them when purchasing a vehicle but didn’t have an option here. Mine isn’t working and if it wasn’t so much work to pull the entire headliner down to put in a custom one I’d have a competent body shop just delete it.

 

[ofourthreefive]

I posted a thread with the parts you need to replace those cables, probably takes 2-3 hours and found a group buy for 500ish for the new parts.