Hi, my sunroof in my 96 is stuck partly down, I mean the back of it is slightly lowered and wont tuck back up properly, and so when it rains hard, water gets in. I can hear the motor trying to turn it open/closed, but just goes for a split second, and then it stops, as if the sunroof is jammed or something. The tilt function does not work at all, no clicking sound either. I've removed the front of the headliner to expose the sunroof motor. Do you think my motor is seized?

Also, is there a way to manually pull it back up to the proper seated position for the time being (without having to remove the entire headliner) to stop water from coming in?

Any ideas?

 

I just had a customer in here that has the EXACT same problem. He found out the drains were plugged, causing water to back up into the copper tubes for the sunroof cables. Since they are exposed metal, they rusted in no time. He now has to buy new copper tubes and cables, at around $280

Btw, water should NEVER be coming in if the drains are not plugged. First thing I would do it unplug those drains so you stop getting a water issue.

 

If you can hear the motor run,like its jammed,and glass is lop-sided in one direction.....Its the sunroof cables that are bad most likely,probably one of the sides has stripped teeth....Its a long pain in the butt job to replace them.

I need to do them when it warms up for a family member's 97 landcruiser...I don't look forward to using an impact driver to get all the grab handles off...and the rest of that huge headliner out of the truck...

anyway...

To temp get the glass down,all you have to do is unbolt the motor,pull it down out of the sunroof assembly...Now you can manually push/pull the glass so that its flush with the roof panel...next unplug the motor's connector...then put motor back into sunroof assembly...the motor unplugged will keep the glass where you set it...and unplugging...so that you do not accidentally switch the motor on...and jam it up again...

 

Good info to know in case it ever happens to me......thanks.........

 

I was thinking the same thing!

 

Thanks! I will do this 1st thing tomorrow morn. Cheers, and thanks for all the help!

 

I just had something similar happen to me yesterday and after spending the night searching various forums, I found lots of mention of stripped teeth and hundreds if not thousands to fix. My sunroof would move a little back and forth, but would not close.
First, I found that the pins on the ends of the air deflector arms had come out but could easily be replaced by pushing the air deflector down which pulls the arms slightly forward. My sunroof would then close half way. Hmmm...progress...so in my case it did not seem to be stripped teeth. I remembered reading on another post that holding down the "tilt" button for 15 seconds would release the motor and allow one to close the sunroof manually. This did not work for me. Maybe 3rd gen?
I looked in my owners manual to see if it said anything about a reset procedure, and found this tidbit of information: To normalize the moon roof - push and hold the switch on the "Tilt Up" side until the moon roof tilts all the way up and then tilts down a little automatically. BTW, its under moon roof in the index, not sunroof.
This apparently can occur if the battery is disconnected; run down or the jam protection has been activated even once, and the vehicle has been turned off since.
The first time I tried this it didn't work, so I disconnected my battery for about 10 minutes, reconnected, and tried again. It worked! my sunroof now works perfectly again. Hope this helps someone else.