Moonroof not closing all the way

[Pennywise]

Hi all,

Ok, before all the flaming begins, I've searched and searched and couldn't find the exact issue that I was experiencing.

Anyhow, after cleaning the 4Runner the other day, I noticed that the moonroof didn't appear to be closing all the way. The rear side of the moonroof is sitting lower than the roof by about a quarter inch or so. I can't say that I ever remember how it came, but it just seemed like it wasn't fully sealed. I did go through all the normalization procedures and the one touch feature works great.

The strange thing is when it closes from the full open position, it will close, push up and then lower slightly and stop. It looks as if the slight lowering at the end causes it to sit lower than the roof. This may be a stupid question, but just wanted to see if this was normal for other 4Runners out there. I would think that the rear of the moonroof should be even with the roof, but it sits lower.

I would appreciate it to get some other opinions. I'm not sure if this would be something that I'll need to adjust or if this is how it works. I can't image having to deal with water damage if indeed it isn't sealing correctly.

Thanks in advance,

Tom

 

[jharris2]

Try disconnecting the battery for 15 minutes then reinitialize the sunroof, driver's window, rear window.

 

[Pennywise]

Thanks John for the suggestion. However, I tried that with no luck. The sunroof still appears to be sagging in the rear. I would like to know if this is how it should be or if there is a problem. If you have a moonroof, could you check it out on yours in the next couple of days. I may be worrying about nothing, but it would just help ease my mind.

If mine does appear to be sitting lower, do you know of any type of manual adjustment or stop that could be adjusted?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[jharris2]

Thanks John for the suggestion. However, I tried that with no luck. The sunroof still appears to be sagging in the rear. I would like to know if this is how it should be or if there is a problem. If you have a moonroof, could you check it out on yours in the next couple of days. I may be worrying about nothing, but it would just help ease my mind.

If mine does appear to be sitting lower, do you know of any type of manual adjustment or stop that could be adjusted?

Thanks,
Tom

I'm overseas right now, but I recall mine being flush with the roof at the rear of the sunroof. Hope that helps.

 

[BullDawg]

Have had this happen to me one time also. For no reason it was like the calibration on the moonroof was off by about 1/4" to 1/2" from closing and sealing the rear lip. Not sure if the initialization procedure referred to is the same as what i did but here is what worked... By pure dumb luck I tried opening roof all the way back.. ran the roof all the way passed closed to vented forward position (rear of roof lifted up) and then back to closed position. It recalibrated the track position and so far the roof seals perfectly everytime since.

 

[Pennywise]

Thanks guys for you help. I'll have to try this procedure and see if it works out.

It does seem like the stops are not adjusted correctly or came out of adjustment. It works fine, just doesn't seem to stop where it should. I would assume that there are some manual adjustments, but not really sure where to begin looking. I figured that someone else may have expierenced this already.

So, BullDawg, the rear of your moonroof is even with the roof now? Just want to make sure that there actually is a problem before I create some...


Thanks,
Tom

 

[jharris2]

Running it through a full cycle of open, close, vent, close won't damage anything -- that's the same steps in the procedure to initialize it.

 

[BullDawg]

So, BullDawg, the rear of your moonroof is even with the roof now? Just want to make sure that there actually is a problem before I create some...


Thanks,
Tom

Yes its flush with roof now. I noticed by the wind noise whistling around moonroof.. Got to looking at it and noticed just like you sad, the back edge was down about 1/4" or more. Had to manualy bump the switch (towards the vented position) to go beyond closed and actually stop it in the right place. The initialization process should allow it to recalibrate to stop in the right position.

 

[Falls]

Just went out to check mine on my 06 , it is flush with the roof. Sounds like it may just be an adjustment issue. May have been that way for a bit but you never noticed. Make sure the tracks are clear .

 

[Pennywise]

Thanks guys for checking for me. You told me exactly what I didn't want to hear. I have ran it though a couple full cycles trying to normalize it, but it didn't seem to work. I guess I'll have to just quickly hit the button until it's flush until I get around to really looking into it and attempting a fix.

A while back I did clean off the white grease which was all dried and brittle (I remember this being discussed before) and replace it with some bearing grease that I had around here. I highly doubt that I did something to break it hear.

As for clearance issues, I doubt it would be that since it seems to tilt upwards fine (no hesitation or grinding). So it just appears that it isn't being normalized correctly.

Other than the TSB for the stuck open moonroof, anyone have any documents from the service manuals or such that may be beneficial? I'd like to have some idea what I'm diving into.

Thanks again guys,
Tom

 

[Pennywise]

Ok, After looking at it, I think I know what happened.

A while back, I tried opening it and heard a grinding and what now I believe to be the gears skipping. Not sure why, but that's a tangent.

If the gears were to skip, it would confuse the computer/motor on what the *real* closed position would be. The motor has no way to know where the closed position is, neither does the computer. All the computer knows is that from position x=1 (open), say it takes 40 revolutions of the motor to close the moonroof. What if it did really skip gears so instead of starting at position x=1, it is starting at position x=0. Now, 40 revolutions of the motor would cause it to fall short from being fully closed. This would also entail that the moonroof is slightly more than open at this point.

The calibration of the moonroof, in my opinion, does nothing more than allowing the button to be released and power will still be applied to the motor to finish carrying out the journey of 40 revolutions.

Does this make any sense? After watching how the track guides the pin inside the track on the moonroof guide, it appears that the track is stopping short of where it should to push the moonroof fully closed.

I think I need to do the following. Allow the computer to close the moonroof to where it believes it should be. Remove the motor, manually close the moonroof (by sliding the tracks slightly) and reinstalling the motor.

2 questions:
Did anybody follow this?
If so, any thoughts?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[BullDawg]

Let me give you another perspective to think about though.. I'm thinking that you have to limit/overload switches somewhere in the mechinism. ie... when the moonroof gets all the open the limit switch would turn the motor off so that it wouldn't continue to try and run (or burn the motor up). The Initialization sequence.. and I'm guessing here is to run from limit to limit (full open to full tilt) or set the foward most full tilt position (as the manual indicates) and allow the motor to recalibrate where those stops hit. Now this is all just my limited brain trying to capture what may happen... not sure if it uses limit switch, a motor load switch or what though.

Good luck man.. I'm probably way out of my lane.. I'm just counting my lucky stars that mine readjusted the way it did. I ran it for about a month before I lucked upon whatever I did that corrected it.

 

[Uneek]

Tom,

I follow what you're saying... similar to power windows, if it motor is calibrated to make a certain number of turns to fully open and close it.

I thought there was a post where someone posted a page or two of the service manual with steps to remove the moonroof glass. I could be wrong, but I think I saw directions there for adjusting the glass so that it will close flush.

 

[Pennywise]

Let me give you another perspective to think about though.. I'm thinking that you have to limit/overload switches somewhere in the mechinism. ie... when the moonroof gets all the open the limit switch would turn the motor off so that it wouldn't continue to try and run (or burn the motor up). The Initialization sequence.. and I'm guessing here is to run from limit to limit (full open to full tilt) or set the foward most full tilt position (as the manual indicates) and allow the motor to recalibrate where those stops hit. Now this is all just my limited brain trying to capture what may happen... not sure if it uses limit switch, a motor load switch or what though.

Good luck man.. I'm probably way out of my lane.. I'm just counting my lucky stars that mine readjusted the way it did. I ran it for about a month before I lucked upon whatever I did that corrected it.

Thanks BullDawg,

I see exactly what you saying and it seems to make sense so you're not completely out of your lane.

However, I don't see how a limit switch could be used because of the nature of the moonroof. There is no actual stop that is used to designate when it is fully closed. If there was, the rear of the moonroof wouldn't not be able to proceed higher than the roof and be able to tilt.

I started thinking that there may be some type of other non-mechanical sensor, but I seriously doubt it. In addition, I tried to look around when I was working with it yesterday, however there doesn't appear to be a whole lot going on up there. And no adjustments as far as I found out. I was looking for the bolt and elongated hole, but there were none to be found so far. I was hoping to loosen a bolt, adjust the moonroof and tighten it back up, but that would be too easy.

Thanks for the ideas and thoughts. And that is the great thing about this forum; the ability to bounce ideas around and learn from others.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[Pennywise]

Tom,

I follow what you're saying... similar to power windows, if it motor is calibrated to make a certain number of turns to fully open and close it.

I thought there was a post where someone posted a page or two of the service manual with steps to remove the moonroof glass. I could be wrong, but I think I saw directions there for adjusting the glass so that it will close flush.

Uneek,

If you think about it, power windows actually have a stop when they're fully closed, so I would assume that they *could* actually be smart enough to know when it's closed. When the motor finally seats the window, the motor will be struggling to continue pushing it upwards even though the windows up, which would cause an increase of current to the motor and the computer will stop the motor since it knows that it is closed. It is the monitoring of this current to identify when the window is fully closed. The same idea behind the child safety features of the power windows and garage doors and such. When something blocks the path, the motor will need to obtain slightly more power to overcome the object and the current will increase. The increase of current is detected and the computer reverses the direction, preventing the object from becoming trapped.

With the moonroof, there really is no closed position, because of the tilt feature, so it couldn't monitor the current and know when the moonroof is closed.

I remember that I did find something on here a while back. I believe it was the TSB for replacing the moonroof or something similar. I believe that should help me out a little. It couldn't hurt at this point.

Thanks Uneek,
Tom

 

[Pennywise]

Issue Resolved

Well, I had some time to work on the moonroof on Friday and I believe that the issue is resolved. I ended up following TSB BO016-06 (Moonroof Stuck/Improper Operation). I dont' have a link handy, but it is posted in another thread.

I removed the gear assembly (located above the maplights) and the moonroof glass, which isn't as heavy as you would think. I adjusted the tracks as described in the TSB and reinstalled everything. There are little markings on the track and the frame of the moonroof that need to line up which is the normally closed position. Therefore, you must make sure that the moonroof is in the fully closed position before removing the gear assembly, since this is the starting point for operation.

The tracks were slightly out, but even after I finished this, I still noticed that there was still a lip between the roof and the glass. However, the holes on the moonroof frame are elongated, which provides some adjustment up and down. I loosened the bolt and push the frame up and retightened the bolt. I did this with all four bolts and it seems to be perfect now.

In saying that, I may not have even had to remove the glass and the motor. I may have been able to simply loosen these bolts, adjust and tighten, but at least I know that the tracks are adjusted correctly.

I did mange to strip out the torx bolts that were holding the glass to the tracks, which isn't a good sign. I ended up getting them out and needed to replace them with #10-32 bolts (3/8" in length). They fit just fine. Be sure to use #10 washers.

Thanks for everyones help and this wasn't a difficult adjust even with one person, but it would probably be wise to have 2 people to help lift and lower the moonroof glass into place.

Thanks,
Tom

 

[EH007]

Power window motors self calibrate. If you have ever replaced a worn power window motor, you will see that no matter what position the motor is in, once you cycle the window open and closed it will calibrate the motor to allow the full range of the up/down cycle.

I don't know for sure, but I would imagine the power sunroof motor would be the same way.

 

[Pennywise]

Update

So far, so good. The alignment seems to be holding up and the moonroof still seems to be closing properly. It's hard to tell if it's leaking, but at least it's in proper position now. Even if it did leak (now or before), it appears that there are water channels that will funnel the water down the A-pillar and dumps it out under the vehicle somewhere (at least it looked like a drain was there).

The main reason for pasting a reply was to post what some may find helpful. In removing the maplight console, I managed to lose the metal clips that hold its in place. They slide on the plastic *post* and snap the console tight against the headliner. While I went down to order these, I figured that I'd order a few extra of the small yellow clips that I seem to lose/break when I remove the dash. Here is the information on these clips.

90468-05125 Metal Clip for the maplight console (~1.00 each)
90467-10203 Small Yellow Clip for the dash (~.75 each)


Tom