Does anyone have any info about where the sunroof drain dumps out on an '04 G35 Coupe?

I looked through the FSM and the only thing I found was that there seems to be a spot in the back of the roof\chassis right in the middle of the sunroof area and just behind or under the back of the sunroof glass. The FSM is incredibly vague and doesn't mention anything about drain tubes on the coupe like it does for the sedan.

I have water leaking into my passenger's side rear section and pooling up on the floor. I also seem to have some occasionally building up on the rear window but I haven't seen the water dripping firsthand since I don't drive the car during the winter.

I pulled off the front A-pillar today just to make sure there were no tubes there like the sedan has, and there definitely weren't any. I didn't have time to rip apart the whole interior and start searching for any drains in the back.

Does anyone else have any info about this? Maybe even someone who has taken out their headliner may have noticed a drain tube or two coming from the sunroof and routing out somewhere?

Thanks!

 

 

There are multiple drain tubes. Below shows the rear passenger side hose attached to the rails. I believe there are 4 total but its been a while since I removed the headliner.

 

Thanks Herrschaft
Any idea where they drain to?

 

No. There are youtube videos of people messing with them, I would start there.

 

I did that prior to posting and after checking the FSM, but all of the videos are for either sedan's or G37's and all have drains going down the A-pillars in the front.

I popped off both A-pillars in my car after looking at those vids this past weekend and neither side A-pillar in my car has a drain tube running down it. They must have done the G35 Coupes differently than the G37 Coupes and G35 sedans with regard to the sunroof drains. It seems they only have rear drains on the G35 Coupe (or at least I hope it even has those since I've yet to rip my headliner off to check).

I popped up my sunroof this weekend and cleaned all around the track and roof trim and inside the sunroof cavity as well as cleaned the sunroof seal and lubed it up with Formula 303 Aerospace protectant. We got some rain last night and I don't think any water came in, but it wasn't that hard of a rain.

I may hit it with a hose tomorrow and try to flush the issue out since it's supposed to be a warm day.

 

Well.. with essentially a monsoon predicted to hit us tomorrow, I figured I better get this taken care of ASAP before my car became an aquarium.

I ripped out about 1\4 of my interior and was able to get to the sunroof drain pipes to clean them out. The '03 and '04 coupes seem to be different than other year Nissan 350Z's and Infiniti vehicles in that the sunroof drain tubes are actually hidden by being routed INSIDE the A pillar rather than just along the outside of it. I had ripped my A-pillar covers off a few weeks ago to look for them and was surprised when I couldn't find them. I was really scratching my head today when I pulled all of my rear interior trim and saw that there were no visible tubes in the rear as well. Only when I dropped the headliner did I see that they were in fact there and that there was only about 1.5 inches of visible tube before they disappeared into the rear pillar.

My passengers side rear was completely plugged up and with what seemed to be about at least 8-12 inches of solid debris or more. My other 3 drains were partially plugged but still flowed a bit of water, with the partial blockages being right at the sunroof outlet and easily cleaned by popping the tube off of the outlet and using a Q-tip to clean out the port as well as the first few inches of the drain tube.

The passengers side rear was a much bigger hassle. There is no mention anywhere in the Factory Service Manual about the routing of these drain tubes. I was able to track the route by using my (still-functional) drivers side tube as a guide. I poured some hot water into the sunroof lip tray from a water bottle with the sunroof open and saw that the water was dumping out just behind my rear wheel on that side. Popping off the plastic splash shield behind the rear tire (held on by 3 plastic pop-rivets) and looking into the exposed area with a flashlight, you can see the exit point for the plastic sunroof drain tube.

I used a piece of very firm wire with rubber shielding on the outside as a snake to unplug the drain. I started from the top near the sunroof and pushed it down, encountering a plug only about 4 or 5 inches down. I kept spinning it and pulling it out, cleaning off the end and repeating until I was able to get about 4 or 5 feet of it down the tube at which point I couldn't get it any further unplugged. I then went at it from the other end and ran the tube up from the drain end near the rear tire and snaked it out pretty good. I then stuck the sunroof end of the tube into a paper cup jammed in between the headliner and the roof and took a compressor and blew air up from the drain end to push out any remaining debris. A ton of nasty dirt and debris came out and into the cup.

After reattaching the tube to the sunroof outlet and running some really hot water through it, the water was now draining very smoothly and gurgling out to the rear tire drain area.

So those of you with a sunroof... be warned. You might want to make it a regular maintenance step to open your sunroof and clean out the tray around the sunroof from any debris at least once a year. Even if you never use your sunroof (like me), dirt still makes its way into those drains and can plug them up and cause a huge nightmare of a mess in your car and lead to moldy interior and condensation building up on your windows at a fairly regular rate.

If you end up having to unplug them, you will have to remove at least the following from each side of your interior and in this order:

-Rubber gasket around the door (it just pulls off, but you don't need to completely remove it, just unseat the portions around where you are working)
-A-pillar covers (held on by 2 attached pop rivets)
-Grab handle (passengers side)
-Drivers Side "Card holder" (where the grab handle would be if on passengers side)
-Sun Visor (which also has a wiring harness going into it that needs to be unplugged)
-Front Seatbelt shoulder strap mount along B-pillar (single 14 mm screw)
-Now pull the rear seat-back down by using the pull handle in the trunk, since you can't remove the other interior side pieces too easily with it up
-Lower plastic interior trim that has rear speaker grille in it and arm rest built into it (held in by a 6 or 7 attached pop rivets)
-Upper plastic interior trim that goes around the rear side window (held on by one 12 mm bolt and 3 or 4 attached pop rivets)
-Sunroof interior rubber trim (holds the headliner to the aluminum unibody roof, and just comes off by pulling on it).
-Optional, for reverse snaking: Rear splash guard behind rear wheel (held on by 3 detachable nylon pop rivets)

You may want to remove your dome light assembly too, but I didn't since I didn't completely drop my headliner, I just pulled down the corners of it near each drain which allowed me enough access to the tubes to do what I had to. Be careful not to bend your headliner too much, crease it, or get it really dirty. It could be pretty easy to ruin your headliner since you will be flushing out nasty mud and gunk from the plugged up tubes, so be prepared to take precautions to prevent staining of the headliner.


Take note.... Getting the upper rear trim piece (that goes around the rear window) back into place was a huge PITA. I had a really tough time getting these 2 plastic slide-in seating edges to slide into their retaining creases while at the same time lining up the pop rivets to their holes and also pinning the whole assembly against the rear valence.

I'm hoping this holds up well in tomorrow's huge rainstorm.

 

Terrific post and a great service to the community for a very common issue that has vexed many folks. Needs to be reposted in its own thread and stickied by a certain colorful mod.

 

Looks like those drains are working great now. We got absolutely decimated with rain the day after I did this as well as the next 4 to 5 weeks after. We literally got 4.5 inches of rain in one day the day after the repair and not a drop came in. The car sat in my driveway up until a few days ago and got snowed on a bunch of times too.

Very happy to have fixed this before it became a more serious problem.

I'd recommend all G35 owners who have a sunroof get out there and open that sunroof, clean out debris from the tray around the sunroof body, and then pour some warm\hot water into each corner of the tray from outside\above the car and make sure that it drains out the appropriate drain. If it doesn't drain out, it's going to eventually back up and come into your car and cause problems.

 

Ummmm, stuck lol.

 

Thanks for this sticky!

I noticed that my front tray was filling with water and sometimes overflowing/dripping when left on the incline of my driveway in rain.

I used the plastic refill wire for my weed wacker to clear my drains from the top, just found the inlet and gently snaked through the whole line and chased it with a few pitchers of hot water to clear anything left on the walls of the hoses. A big glob of debris pushed through the bottom drain.

I only mention the weed wacker line because it may be an easier way to maintain your lines than pulling the headliner? I have added this to my list for maintenance every 10k or so.

 

did you make a video believe have the same problem