'04 Explorer Rear Sunroof Drain Tube Outlet Point

[bmdubya1198]

I've been trying to diagnose a water leak on my 2004 Explorer EB. I already dropped the headlinder to check that the drain tubes are connected, and they all are. The front ones drain just fine, but I can't tell if the rear is draining properly. Unfortunately it's parked nose down on an incline, and it's not running at this point, so I'm limited as to what I can do about that currently. The leak is on the passenger side, appearing mainly at the rear right seat mounting points. It flooded the front right carpet.

Now that the carpet is out and we got a little rain last night, I noticed a little tiny bit of water at those seat mounting studs. Headliner it totally dry and not stained.

Does anybody know how I can access the right rear sunroof drain tube? It goes down the C pillar, but I can't see where it's going or where it is supposed to exit the vehicle. It appears that there is some staining on the floor from the water coming down from there, so I'd like to make sure that the hose is all in tact before putting the interior back together.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Stynx]

I think you are going to have to remove the pillar trim. It drains out at the bottom of the pillar but it sounds like the hose pulled out of the bottom drain fitting.

 

[bmdubya1198]

Got it! I was able to access the hose by removing the lower trim and the seatbelt assembly. The drain tube runs into a plastic ”tank” before running down through the wheel well, then to the ground. It exits near the edge of the rear door. It was all clean, so that may not be the source of water entry. I guess we’ll see if all this work fixed it. If for nothing else, I was able to give the interior a pretty deep cleaning.

For future reference, here are some pictures. The first shows the top corrugated hose that goes into the body at the top of the C pillar. Then it connects to that beige hose farther down (as seen from behind where the seatbelt reel is installed), and slips into the fitting in the final picture. It does not seal or anything, so there is no cause for alarm if you notice that the hose feels loose, like it’s not attached at the bottom. This was the reason for my concern in the first place, but it looks like all is well.

 

[Stynx]

Nice! Hope you find the source of your leak though.

I like the fact that it's a very simple design. Mine came loose on the passenger side front and after a heavy rain was draining a huge amount of water into the headliner and onto the dash. It looked like someone had tried to use silicone to tack it into place but the drain fitting felt greasy - maybe they lubed it at the factory to get the hose on and it wasn't secure enough? I cleaned it, used just a bit of silicone and was able to get everything back into place. Other than having to drop the head liner it was an easy fix.

 

[bmdubya1198]

Yeah, they made it a simple design at least. I had pulled out the front drain tube completely to inspect it (not a great idea) and running it back in place wasn't too much fun. Like I said, my interior was torn apart, so fortunately it wasn't too hard to get back into the dash and guide it down, but it was not easy to get to once I was back there. It hides behind a black rubber cover to the right of the glovebox . Once I figured that out, it wasn't too hard to get situated, but it involved twisting my hands into interesting positions.
Hopefully this made some difference!