Hi, The car has been sitting outside (in South Florida) for a few years. I recently noticed that the headliner got messed up and realized it started leaking. I took the headliner out and found out that the drain nipple is broken. I will fix that, but while everything is out, should I replace the seal between the frame and the roof with sikaflex, or is it not necessary? Thanks!

 

Fixing the drain nipple is a great start. The biggest culprit is the drain line gets clogged and needs to be cleaned out.

 

Remove the glass and reglue the seal that seals to the glass. Remove the sunroof pans and liberally coat the inside of the pans when the corner fittings meet the metal pan. Silicone all the penetrations for the sunshades, mounts and latch points. Silicone all the screws that hold the pans in. Remove and disassembly the motors and grease the rotors liberally. My full post on waterproofing: https://landroverforums.com/forum/di...81/#post713877

 

Checking out rigjt now. Thanks!

 

I was going to use 3/8 brass hose fittings i stead plastic nipple but it looks like there is some.mechanism inside.how come people screwing the brass. It wont even go half an inch.

 

Replace the seal first. The drip tray is not intended to handle large amounts of water. It’s only meant to collect dripping water after opening the sunroof. I had leaks that I thought was caused by the drain nipple/corner piece. After replacing the sunroof seal I have had no leaks. It may also be helpful to tighten down the 4 torq bits that hold the sunroof glass to the frame. Mine were lose after 20 years and 160k miles.

 

I think it collects water even with the sunroof closed. The seal doesn’t seem to be meant for keeping water out of the channel.

 

The seal is designed to minimize the amount of water that flows into the pan. Aging seals allow excess water to flow into the pan and overflow into the headliner. This problem is exacerbated when the truck is parked on an angle. The excess water overflows into the headliner because there are only 2 drain tubes per sunroof.
The solution is to replace your seals and retighten the sunroof glass to minimize the amount of water that flows in.

I am not saying that this is the only cause of sunroof leaks, the drain nipples do break off and they can get clogged with debris. My headliner has never been dropped, and I have stopped all of my leaks just by replacing the seals in both my front and rear sunroof.

 

After replacing/refreshing seals adjust the sunroof glass to make it seat tightly on the seal. Also check the drain pipes for flow. The rear drain pipe design is bad from factory. The hose makes a bend upwards which traps water. Water can flow back into the pan and overflow it. Cut the hose at the bend and install 90 degrees elbows, then it drains like it should.


Before



Inserting elbow fitting



After



I also installed a short piece of silicon hose, since the drain tubing is very hard and causes mechanical stress on those plastic corners that might crack them or break them lose. Those corners are 3D printed btw.

 

Excellent repair. I might have to follow suit if I start having issues again. I agree the rear tubes seem to be an afterthought from the engineering team.
Typical Land Rover.