2004 Camry Sunroof/moonroof repair (TMMK)

[ThorLane]

Hello All...

Decided I didn't want to pay $1K for a sunroof repair, and decided to check it out and see if I could repair the roof myself. Took the glass off with just four T25 screws to view the track. Motor worked, and roof moved erratically and crookedly. Noticed alot of small plastic pieces laying in both the RH/LH tracks - such garbage construction. Obviously, most of the sliding mechanisms' plastic parts were broken off. Found repair kit at sunroofdoctor.com - $130 with shipping included. Exactly the parts that were broken. The entire sunroof mechanism needs to come off the car, so spent most of the day removing garnish panels, front seats, rear seats, etc to be able to remove the headliner. Even with manual's info, you'll guess at some of the removal techniques as not to break the well constructed plastic (right!!). Total time was 8 hrs from start to finish, but if I had to do it again, probably 3 hrs total time. Learning curve here. Parts were IDENTICAL to original OEM, fit like a charm, and now I have a sunroof that hopefully will cycle more than 100 times before a rebuild. If you have some mechanical skill, and the time, I would highly recommend this kit. Follow instructions carefully, and alignment and adjustment is a no-brainer. Good Luck to those who try this.

Thor Lane
2004 Camry XLE

[Steve_M]

Thor- Do you think it would be possible to leave the seats in the car, drop the headliner down, drop the sunroof mechanism down on top of the headliner, and make the repairs without going to all of the trouble of taking these big parts out of the car?

[ThorLane]

Steve:

You might be able to manage if you have an extra pair of hands. I did this alone, and thought that the front seat headrests would not give me much room to work above the liner. The Front seats were actually easy to remove - 4 bolts each, and an electrical quick disconnect. About 10 minutes each. You might try dropping the headliner and leaving the seats in, and if that doesn't give you enough room then you can always remove them.

Most of the time I spent was getting the headliner off. Removing the entire moon roof assembly was a snap and rebuilt it on the floor of my garage. The kit from Sunroof doctor comes with pretty good instructions, but some mechanical ability to figure out the hardware items will help.

Roof is still working perfectly. I didn't document this at all. The headliner, I thought, was the most hassle, just keep removing panels adjacent to the headliner. You might take a look at YouTube to see if someone has video documentation.

Good Luck.
Thor

[chowdahed]

I'm in the process of repairing factory moonroof. Stuck partially opened. Motor clicks and have tried the reset but won't budge. From what dealer and body shop says it probably has a track problem. Sunroof Doctor has a repair kit for $120 plus s&h. But headliner has to come out first. What a pain in the butt this is going to be.
Step by step- here it goes-
The Dome light will pull straight down- disconnect electrical from back, put in safe place
The front overhead lights and roof switch assembly- From drivers seat, carefully pull down trim edge( closest to you- the back side ) about 2-3 inches- you will see 3 plastic bent (swing ?) type tabs that hook into roof, let down alittle and squeeze electric plug from top to disconnect.Whole unit should be free - put aside in safe place.
Visors- pop off plastic cover at swing arm - finger nail or flat screw driver. Remove 2 screws and rotate arm to free. No force is needed just positioning to remove. Plastic visor clips- pop off with fingers or screw driver. Part of clip will pop off but retaining clip will stay in roof metal.
4 Headliner Grab bars- 2 plastic covers each. Carefully pry off with fingers or screw driver. each piece has 3 little lock tabs, they break easy. Remove screws - place in safe place.
Seats- did not remove. Removed head rests & put front seats mid way foward and reclined backs all the way.
Moonroof & Headliner Trim- Pulled away from edge and removed- it is just a friction fit
Trim Panels- Most of the panels have plastic clips that will break. Before reassmbly advise to go to local dealer/ body shop and buy a few. Local part stores ussually do not have this clip, real toyota style needed.
Front Dash/Windshield to Headliner Trim - both sides- Gently pulled top of trim to undo about halfway removed. Just enough to give room for headliner to come out.
Rear window to headliner trim- same as front.
Center Door Pillar - These pulled off easy - just let them rest in place with seat belt.
Each door has a edging on it - no need to remove- Just slip your finger between headliner and trim edge and headliner will be out.
At this point the headliner, with a just nudge, should be almost completely free and partially hanging down. There are 4 clips supporting the headliner just foward of the rear window, a gentle nudge of the headliner towards the rear should disengage headliner and be hanging. There are 2 wiring harness' attached to headliner with foam tape, pull off tape( use some Gorilla Duct tape at reassembly).
Put key in ignition, turn on, depress brake pedal and put transmission in 1st, turn car off. Put Steering whell all the way up. Manuever headliner towards left front under steering wheel and remove thru right front door. Found out that putting shifter in 1st gave enough room to pull headliner thru front door without too much flexing and bending. No damage was done to headliner.
There are 4 draintubes attached to Moonroof frame. Before anything else, Blow these clean. Either with compressed air or take a few deep breaths and blow hard a few times. 2 of mine were clogged. If these are not clear they will not let any water that gets in to drain. After all this work it would really suck after you put all together, to find water dripping. You can blow them clear from the outside but anything in them will blow back into the headliner and onto the tracking of the moonroof.
Well that is were I'm at now. Tomorrow, I hope, will be taking down and out the actual moon roof assembly to see if I need the Sunroof Doctors repair Kit or if I can hopefully just pop a track back into place.
Before you put the headliner back together check you motor and switch. If you have a bad motor - shop around- used ones can go for $150-200, new ones $375 & up.
I hope any of this can be helpfull to fellow Camry owners.
Will post info about the repair to track when done.

[Steve_M]

Thor and Dan - Thanks guys, this is great stuff! I started to tackle this last summer, but decided I might get in over my head, and deferred. I have since removed, recovered, and reinstalled a headliner in another car and now feel more confident about my ability to deal with the Camry, but I won't have a chance to do it until late December. But with your input I am now actually looking forward to it.

My roof didn't close properly when I bought the car. I suspect that it needed to be reset, but that somebody tried pushing it down and broke some plastic pieces. I took the glass off and identified 2 or 3 broken items (hard to tell what I was looking at until I looked at the diagram at the dealer parts counter). I know my motor is good - I'm hoping I don't have problems with the tracks.

I initially hoped that I could repair this from outside the car. I bought the parts I thought I needed from the dealer. There are three parts on each side that look like potential problems. First are the Sliding Roof Lift Arms (63227E on right, 63228F on left) at $21 each. Next are the Removable Roof Hinges (63285 on right, 63286 left) at $16 each. Last are the Roof Drip Channel Guides (63221D right, 63222D left) at $9 each. I only bought 3 of these 6 items, figuring that if I needed more of them I could just order them at the dealer and be delayed a day. Knowing what a major production this repair is, I think I'll replace all 6 items while I'm in there, which should cost less than a hundred dollars. I have procedures from Alldata for removing the sunroof - I'm hoping that the assembly and reassembly of the roof will be obvious, as I do not have instructions at that level of detail. Anyone else tackling this needs to realize that I am working on a Kentucky Camry, and the Japanes moonroof is apparently different.

The fabric covering this headliner has separated at the back pillars, and I am concerned that it may continue to fail across the whole roof, so I will probably wind up recovering it while it's out (a new headliner is something like 4 or 5 hundred dollars).

[Steve_M]

I have repaired my sunroof, replacing all six sliding parts identified in my previous post. I completely removed the headliner and the sunroof from the car, which I think is the only way I could have done it. I did not remove seats or headrests.

Headliner: To remove the overhead console (which contains the maplights and sunroof switch), I squeezed my fingertips under the console (on the windshield side) and pulled stright down. Two spring clips hold that edge into the roof, and the opposite edge is held up by long plastic fingers that hug the headliner. Hint- it's scary to pull trim off when you don't know what the other side looks like - to avoid breaking things, look for the item on eBay first so that you can study the pictures and learn about what you're up against (not to mention the replacement cost if you still manage to screw it up!) The courtesy lamp is also held up by spring clips - pry the plastic lens open first (from driver's side) so that you can see how it works. If you have side curtain airbags, there will be "SRS" badges in the A and C pillar coverings. These have bolts underneath that need to be removed before pulling on the coverings. The badges themselves are not completely removable - they are tethered on one side, so look carefully as you start to pry so that you don't break the tether. The little covers at the ends of the grab handles have 3 little slots that engage tabs that stick out from the handle base - I expected it to be the other way around. If you have a rear window sunscreen, you need to remove the two clips that hold it up.

When we got the headliner out, some of the clips and one of the velcro patches from the back of the headliner were separated from where they belonged - I reattached them with contact adhesive (Sealsall).

Removing the sunroof was easy, but I didn't have good instructions to work from to help me install the new parts, so I had to study the thing a little to take it apart. Once the motor is unbolted, the hinge (where the end of the cable is attached) has to be slid out the back of the track. There is a small stop screw underneath that has to be removed first. There was a lot of resistance in removing and installing these parts. I wiped out the tracks and applied grease (NAPA Sil-Glyde) before sliding the new parts in. I slid everything up to the front (that way everything was exactly parallel from one side to the other, which wasn't the case when it came out.)

I'm glad I replaced all six parts - the two back pieces, which engage the bar that pushes the sunshade back, were both broken, though probably not to the point of stopping the thing from working, The passenger side hinge was broken. The other three parts might have been ok.

I did not recover my headliner - I decided that just glueing the back edges at the C pillar might be good enough - I hope I don't regret it. I also upgraded my overhead console with a used one I found that has Homelink buttons - that worked just fine, as the electrical connection is the same.

If you manage to break springclips from the console, or the plastic inserts in the A pillars that engage the tabs on the coverings, the Dealer has them.