Warning, long boring post about fixing my sunroof ahead. So short history, received this GX as a gift from my mother-in-law 2 months back or so, after I'd been looking at used ones for the past three years. 2004, 170k miles. Air springs (bags?) Are leaking and need replaced, and second time I opened the sun roock heard a loud grinding and the glass looked like it was opening and closing a little crooked..it would open and close with said loud grinding (sounded so bad never wanted to use the sun roof), but it wouldn't close/seat right and I was worried about Utah winters and AZ mansoon rain storms...... So this weekend I attempted the inevitable and pulled the headliner out to access sun roof tray, remove it to find the issue, regrease, and reassemble. A task that made me a bit anxious how invloved it looked based on a thread on the 120 forum here where a user did the same thing but instead sealed the glass permanently closed. Another thread on Club Lexus helped a lot, even if it was written out of order and missed some steps (surprise, I got to figure those out as I went) the disassembly photos from the 120 thread did help a lot.
Like all jobs seem to go, it always seems easier until you start. I thought I'd be clearing a track and reinstalling, badda Bing!! But it turned into a larger project fast.
I took everything out. All sun visits, most "Oh S@#$ handles" overhead lights and sunglass holder, all mounts and clips from ceiling. Pried all A, B, and C pillar plastic open from the interior. That way the headliner (upside down tray) slides out the back. It does take some finagling, and patience and proper positioning of seats and interior trim peices to get it out without damage, be patient.
You then drop the sun roof assemblt tray. it is held in place by 8 to 10 bolts and then for larger clamps all of those need to be removed and I found that even the for larger clamps had to be removed as well to drop it down and slide it out the rear hatch.
Once the sunroof tray is out I put it on a table grease everything up slit it up and down in the tracks and looked around for the culprit of what may have been jamming it. I found an inch and a half long twig that looked like a piece of pretzel. that was jammed inside one of the small tray grooves at the very back so when the window opened the sunroof grooves were blocked on one side and then the cabling of the sunroof mechanism got jammed up and crooked hence large crunching noises and crooked window glass.
Once everything is cleaned out and lubed you then reverse assemble it I had my wife out helping balance the sunroof assembly as I bolted a lot of it together it would be pretty tricky to do it by yourself. And then you slide the headliner back in, being patient it's tricky, velcro everything back in place make sure all the wiring harness and cabling is installed properly and all the openings and then velcro everything back in place around the sunroof window opening there are other grommets that punch up through the ceiling to hold the back portion in place and then the sides of the headliner are held in place by the a b & c pillar trim. there are a lot of screws and bolts and brackets and little plastic things to keep track of I use Ziploc bags but if you were to start this project make sure you organize everything maybe a little better than I did, I was still able to find everything and put it back in but it's like reassembling a puzzle that's been thrown on the floor there's just a lot of parts and pieces to keep straight.
I wish that was the simple process that I had followed, but like a dingleberry I opened the sunroof motor to see if that's what the problem was before I found the twig. I would recommend not doing that because of the magnets and brushes inside are so strong that everything is thrown out of place when you open the motor and with the force of the magnets it's nearly impossible to get it reassemble properly again. This I found out later I had broken some of the motor contacts and the motor wouldn't work, I found this after I reassembled the sunroof track back in the car, and then I realized what I had done and realized what the pieces were that I had broken. That's when the feeling of desperation set in and I started searching for people parting out their cars on Craigslist I was looking for sequoias tacomas for runners and Lexus trucks. I ended up finding the part number and visited three different junk yards and was able to find the motor I needed in a Lexus ES330, but to make it work in the GX I had to swap the circuit boards. That all worked put everything back in place and now my wife can take kids to school again.
I should have taken more pictures. Let me know if you have any questions about the process.
Here is the headliner out.
Had a good helper.
The culprit:
Part I found in junk yard
Beautiful day. "Hoods up America"
Ih8 wire harnesses
All installed
Interesting fact, from the Aisin, Toyota, Denso design, all sunroof motors will wear out eventually (like everything right) but the contacts that are touching the internal spinning thing 8n the electric motor (whatever it's called) are pushed to touch it with springs, thus slowly and slowly wearing down the contacts as it spins over time.
Like all jobs seem to go, it always seems easier until you start. I thought I'd be clearing a track and reinstalling, badda Bing!! But it turned into a larger project fast.
I took everything out. All sun visits, most "Oh S@#$ handles" overhead lights and sunglass holder, all mounts and clips from ceiling. Pried all A, B, and C pillar plastic open from the interior. That way the headliner (upside down tray) slides out the back. It does take some finagling, and patience and proper positioning of seats and interior trim peices to get it out without damage, be patient.
You then drop the sun roof assemblt tray. it is held in place by 8 to 10 bolts and then for larger clamps all of those need to be removed and I found that even the for larger clamps had to be removed as well to drop it down and slide it out the rear hatch.
Once the sunroof tray is out I put it on a table grease everything up slit it up and down in the tracks and looked around for the culprit of what may have been jamming it. I found an inch and a half long twig that looked like a piece of pretzel. that was jammed inside one of the small tray grooves at the very back so when the window opened the sunroof grooves were blocked on one side and then the cabling of the sunroof mechanism got jammed up and crooked hence large crunching noises and crooked window glass.
Once everything is cleaned out and lubed you then reverse assemble it I had my wife out helping balance the sunroof assembly as I bolted a lot of it together it would be pretty tricky to do it by yourself. And then you slide the headliner back in, being patient it's tricky, velcro everything back in place make sure all the wiring harness and cabling is installed properly and all the openings and then velcro everything back in place around the sunroof window opening there are other grommets that punch up through the ceiling to hold the back portion in place and then the sides of the headliner are held in place by the a b & c pillar trim. there are a lot of screws and bolts and brackets and little plastic things to keep track of I use Ziploc bags but if you were to start this project make sure you organize everything maybe a little better than I did, I was still able to find everything and put it back in but it's like reassembling a puzzle that's been thrown on the floor there's just a lot of parts and pieces to keep straight.
I wish that was the simple process that I had followed, but like a dingleberry I opened the sunroof motor to see if that's what the problem was before I found the twig. I would recommend not doing that because of the magnets and brushes inside are so strong that everything is thrown out of place when you open the motor and with the force of the magnets it's nearly impossible to get it reassemble properly again. This I found out later I had broken some of the motor contacts and the motor wouldn't work, I found this after I reassembled the sunroof track back in the car, and then I realized what I had done and realized what the pieces were that I had broken. That's when the feeling of desperation set in and I started searching for people parting out their cars on Craigslist I was looking for sequoias tacomas for runners and Lexus trucks. I ended up finding the part number and visited three different junk yards and was able to find the motor I needed in a Lexus ES330, but to make it work in the GX I had to swap the circuit boards. That all worked put everything back in place and now my wife can take kids to school again.
I should have taken more pictures. Let me know if you have any questions about the process.
Here is the headliner out.
Had a good helper.
The culprit:
Part I found in junk yard
Beautiful day. "Hoods up America"
Ih8 wire harnesses
All installed
Interesting fact, from the Aisin, Toyota, Denso design, all sunroof motors will wear out eventually (like everything right) but the contacts that are touching the internal spinning thing 8n the electric motor (whatever it's called) are pushed to touch it with springs, thus slowly and slowly wearing down the contacts as it spins over time.
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i consulted your thread a few times. But what a chore, so many peices. It is good to have it done, it did just downpour in Phoenix last week, something I was dreading if my wife was out driving it.
