its raining IN my car

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doofah
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its raining IN my car

Post by doofah »

Well, it was just an ordinary british september day. An ordinary any british day, the rain was coming down faster than the speed of light and I was sitting in my office wistfully thinking that I'm glad I have an indoor job.
5pm came, the car had been in the carpark for 9 hours. Out I went, skipping through puddles and so on.. okay exaxgeration, trudging tentatively, wondering about the possibility of migrating jellyfish being caught in the storm...
I hopped into my car, started the engine, waited for her to elevate "First floor, transportation, reverse, steering."
-=Drip=-
My hand was on the gear lever. The drip landed on my hand. I pulled the sunroof cover back and checked, the sunroof was fully closed, I moved it with the button just to be sure.
The rooflining surrounding the visor clips in the centre of the windshield was saturated, and dripping.....
"Caution, slippery when wet"
Oh no. Now, this is directly beneath the aerial, and obviously in front of the sunroof, my little heart dropped, landing in a rapidly forming puddle under the handbrake lever.
I drove home with a heavy heart and a wet arm.... Every time I braked the drips got faster. On getting home I checked the aerial, it doesn't seem loose. So I'm thinking the sunroof seal is knackered?
Does anyone have any suggestions for a fix? Or experience with this problem? The car has been garaged its entire life, there's no staining on the roof lining to suggest this has happened before but then I could be wrong...
-=sniff=-
Thanks guys...
Curt
Mosser
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Post by Mosser »

I'm pretty sure that the sunroof seal on most cars isnt 100% watertight anyway, there should be special drain channels to collect and drain away any water that gets inside the sunroof seal, and if yours is leaking then its likely that the drain channel is blockd with leaves and muck and stuff, this causes the drips to fill up the drain channel and eventually overflow,
Have a look inside with the sunroof open and see if you can see any drain channels, or someone with a Xantia with a sunroof might come along with some better info !!, I've never had or been in a Xantia with a sunroof, they seem fairly rare to me !
MW
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Post by MW »

A blocked drain channel, probably. The idea with this sunroof is that rain will always get past the rubber seals whatever you do (and you DID say your car was a 93 model?) So the second line of defence against the water is that it gets routed through the drainage channels and eventually emerges from a pipe somewhere down around the back wheels.
I've never had the problem with my 95 Xant, but perhaps someone can tell you exactly where the drainage tube goes?
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Mandrake
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Post by Mandrake »

Not directly related to the Xantia, but maybe useful anyway, I had the same problem in my previous car, a Honda Accord - two of the drain pipes were blocked with dirt, allowing the trough to fill up and overflow into the roof lining. Usually I would get into the car and the roof lining would be saturated, then as soon as I drove forwards a big gush of water would come down on me. [:(!]
I'm not sure what the situation is with the Xantia, but on my Honda I had to remove the roof lining to gain access to the drain pipes so I could disconnect them and flush them free.
The drain pipes for the sunroof in most cars come out near the bottom of the body, sometimes in the wheel arches, and can thus fill up with dirt and when the dirt dries it becomes so hard and compacted that even blowing as hard as you can won't clear them.
I think I had to use a combination of hot water with detergent forced down the pipe, and poking a steel rod up the pipe from the bottom end of the hoses to dislodge the dirt before I could get it to clear. When you're finished you should be able to easily blow through the pipes.
Regards,
Simon
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fastandfurryous
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Post by fastandfurryous »

There are usually 4 drain tubes from a sunroof, one from each corner. The front ones are easy to get to: open the sunroof fully, and there should be 2 little holes in the corners. Poke something like 0.8mm welding wire down them, and it should come out in the front wheelarch. The rears are sometimes hidden at the back of the sunroof mechanism (somewhere above the rear passenger's head) and are completely inacessable. Only hope here is to remove the headlining, pull the pipe off and rod the tube from there.
It's not advisable to rod these pipes in the opposite direction (up from the wheelarch) as the wire will probably snag at the joint with the sunroof mechanism, and could even pull the pipe off. You may be lucky though, as some sunroof mechanisms have all 4 drians accessable with the sunroof open.
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Mandrake
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Post by Mandrake »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by fastandfurryous</i>
It's not advisable to rod these pipes in the opposite direction (up from the wheelarch) as the wire will probably snag at the joint with the sunroof mechanism, and could even pull the pipe off. You may be lucky though, as some sunroof mechanisms have all 4 drians accessable with the sunroof open.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I wasn't advocating poking the wire all the way back up into the sunroof, just a few inches. The pipes don't block half way down, they block right at the bottom with dirt, so you end up with a few inches at the bottom full of rock hard dry dirt.
Once you can clear a hole through the dirt it will start to wash away, with pressure and hot water, but unless you can clear it a little bit pouring water in or trying to blow through the pipe will do no good. After all if the roof is overflowing it has already sat with the pipe full of water without clearing the blockage of its own accord. [:D]
Regards,
Simon
doofah
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Post by doofah »

Fantastic, thanks guys, hopefully the sunshine will hold out for today and I'll get to it tonight, I've just designed myself a blue peter style sunroof drainpipe cleaner, using a washing up liquid bottle, some aquarium tubing and a pipe cleaner to clear the way for entry...
I'll let you know how I get on!
Thanks again, [picks his heart up and wrings it out] this has been my first "ARGH!" moment with the xantia lol
Mosser
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Post by Mosser »

If you dont get to do it before it rains, just duck tape some thick plastic sheet over the whole sunroof, not pretty but will save the insides of your car becoming damp and mouldy
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fastandfurryous
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Post by fastandfurryous »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mandrake</i>


I wasn't advocating poking the wire all the way back up into the sunroof, just a few inches. The pipes don't block half way down, they block right at the bottom with dirt, so you end up with a few inches at the bottom full of rock hard dry dirt.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I think you and I posted at almost exactly the same time, so I wasn't actually commenting about your method, more just a general statement!
Ad you're quite right of course. They almost always block at the bottom with road wash. That said, a wet leaf or two at the top can cause just as much havoc.
No surprises for guessing why my current car has A/C and no sunroof!
Ciaran
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Post by Ciaran »

I've had the same problem with both a Citroen XM and a Vauxhall Astra, it turned out to be the drain pipes on both occasions.
I found that flexible curtain wire is particularly good for unblocking them as it can provide mild force, but the plastic sheathing stops any metal bits tearing the pipe.
In the case of the XM (I imagine the Xantia is somewhat similar), the front pipes were easily accessible, and seemed pretty clear anyway.
My problem lay in the rear pipes. Little beknown to me, one of them had been full of water for so long that it had started to rust through the metal spout where it joined the sunroof cartridge... a nice surprise I found one day when I removed the headliner in despair.
Anyway, back to the main point, I had to unblock the rear pipes from the bottom up. Feel around inside the rear bumper, and you should find the pipe end dangling, stick the curtain wire up it and just carefully feed it up as far as you can. On the XM I removed the side boot lining, so could see the wire going up through the boot inside the clear tubes. This helped give an idea of how far up the pipe I'd gone.
As someone else mentioned, all the crap and hardened dirt had seemed to collect at the bottom, as I got a gush of muddy water very soon after sticking the wire in.
After that, I carefully withdrew the wire, opened the sunroof, and poured a jug of water down the drain channels at the sides. I started the car, and as the front rises first (bless hydraulic suspension :D), all the water ran to the rear pipes... where it promptly went down and emptied out the back bumper... result. The roof never leaked again after that.
Something to note, it can be quite ackward to twist your hand up inside the bumper, and feed the wire through at the same time, so it might help to jack up / ramp the rear of the car first.
Hope this helps :)
citronut
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Post by citronut »

dont pock wire down the drain tubes you will just cause a big prob for an other day,the best fix for this try and get the use of an air line,find the bottom end of all 4 tubes,now with roof full open and sun screen shut if pos,if not cover the seats and stick the air line up the bottom end of each tube and give it a blast,this will blow the dirt out not push it ferther in,99% of the time the blockage is right at the top where all the rubish collects over the drain holls,as the pipes do not go out side the body of the car,front finnish inside the A piller above door sill and rears behind rear lights
regards malcolm
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Mandrake
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Post by Mandrake »

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by citronut</i>

dont pock wire down the drain tubes you will just cause a big prob for an other day,the best fix for this try and get the use of an air line,find the bottom end of all 4 tubes,now with roof full open and sun screen shut if pos,if not cover the seats and stick the air line up the bottom end of each tube and give it a blast,this will blow the dirt out not push it ferther in,99% of the time the blockage is right at the top where all the rubish collects over the drain holls,as the pipes do not go out side the body of the car,front finnish inside the A piller above door sill and rears behind rear lights
regards malcolm
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
I tried an air compressor on my blocked sunroof pipes - no go. No amount of pressure seemed to be able to unblock it.
I suspect the reason is that the hardened dirt had formed around a bend in the tube such that it was impossible for the dirt to simply travel up (or down) the hose under pressure, as it was the wrong shape.
The dirt didn't come down from the top anyway, it's thrown from the road and the wheel up into the bottom of the pipe, and sets there.
Nope, you have to physically dig at it from the bottom end and start breaking the dirt up into pieces to clear the hole partially, then water from the top can do the rest.
The suggestion of the curtain wire to avoid scratching is a good one, in fact I might have even used curtain wire myself, I don't remember.
Regards,
Simon
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Post by pwatson »

The other possibility is that the tube has become detached from the sunroof "spout". To get at it requires dropping the roof lining slightly which you can do by undoing the screws on the grab handle and removing the grab handle above the rear doors and "unlatching" the roof lining from its groove just enough to get your hand in and have a grope about
citronut
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Post by citronut »

these tubes do not come out under the wheel arches,the rear ones terminate behind rear lamp units in the rear wings,the front ones terminate inside the A post,the only pipes that come out under wheel arch are the bulkhead drain pipes which do get all bunged up with mud and crap,and if you try pocking wire and things down the roof drains you could posibly push them off of there fitting point inside the head linning,you can gain acsess to the front ones from behind the trim on the inside of the A piller,which is beside the front pasengers/dr ivers foot wells
regards malcolm
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