16 replies to this topic

[nicks90]

Done to death and we all know they leak....
but maybe one for a possible tech archive depending on the answers?


Disco 2 sunroof leaks both front and rear. Map pocket above the drivers visor gets full of water and the overhead handle in the rear seat behind driver gets wet and drips onto the rear seat.
sounds to me like both sunroofs are leaking.


So the definitive questions all leaky disco owners have are:-

1) can you buy replacement uprated seal kits to prevent water getting past the seals and hence doing away with the need for the drain cup and drain pipe?
2) If not, are normal seals readily available?
3) is there an easy way of getting to the drain pipes to clear any blockages without dropping the headlining?
4) if not, is there an easy way of dropping the headlining?


if the only option is to do 4) - then this sunday i will be taking loads of photos and doing a writeup on how to remove the headlining and fixing leaky sunroofs on a disco2 ES. not looking forward to it as there looks to be a million clips, switches and wires to dismantle.........
I hope it doesnt end up as a tech archive post, cos i want an easy answer - and no swmbo will not accept siliconing the buggers up. No idea why not - she has aircon!

cheers in advance.
Nick

[Underdog]

You're certainly right about the leaking issue being done to death but it is a problem that most Discovery owners are fed up with as their vehicles seem to drip water at the slightest hint of rain.

When people ask for help I always find this: LINKY to be most helpful. It's predominantly for a series 1 but I suspect it's not too far off the mark for a series 2.
This link also helps: HERE

Regarding your questions
1+2. The inherent design of the Discovery sunroof is meant to allow water to collect, which is then diverted away via the drain tubes. These have to be on the inside of the vehicle because it would look ridiculously stupid to have them on the outside. There is however the drain cup problem which because of the faults with these they allow water to escape. Replacing the glass seal will not prevent water getting in and leaking out through the inevitably broken drain cups. Like any problem, the only solution is to fix the affected part.
3. I have heard of people partly dropping the headlining to access the drain tubes and cups but it is a struggle and probably makes the whole job more difficult.
4. No.

Good luck and don't forget to post your pictures.

[Tomas4x4]

Well I can sympathise with your issue, as I used to have two very leaky sunroofs, but not any more!

My solution after being very fed up of wet carpets and heads, I pulled out the sunroofs, I then cut out two blanking plates from the pieces of metal left over when my brother cut window holes in the side of his VW van, I then used tiger seal to bond them onto my roof. This blanked off the sunroofs a lot neater than I expected and with my truck due for a respray, I am confident that they wont look out of place. I then bought a new headlining from a breakers which had no holes for sunroofs (£10) and fitted that.

I understand that this is probably a bit drastic to do to a nice discovery 2 but hopefully it'll give some other frustrated disco owners some food for though!

Cheers.

Tom.

[nicks90]

well it is done!!!

it wasnt actually as bad as i thought it was going to be - you just need to be methodical and not go all ham-fisted and break clips and stuff. Took about 3 hours all in all.
One of the drain plugs had snapped where it joins the little plastic cup on the sunroof frame and hence all the leaking water from the sunroof just pooled straight on to the top of the headlining and dribbled everywhere.

anyway - all done and dusted.
I took millions of pictures of the whole operation and even made notes (phew, cant remember the last time i actually hand wrote so much) and i will put up a full and hopefully concise method for doing the sunroofs on a disco 2 in the next day or two.


big thanks go to hadyn for giving me a helping hand.

[Underdog]

well it is done!!!

I took millions of pictures of the whole operation and even made notes

Have you got your "How To" sorted yet Nicks90???
I'm looking forward to this one.

[jonah885]

I spoke with a guy who had the same problem on his freelander, now my back sunroof is leaking on my td5 he recommended a mobile sunroof repairer, i gave the guy a call and he his coming out friday to replace the inner seal and check it over at the cost of about £90 all in, ill update after he has done the job but he removes the headlining etc .Best thing was he laughed when i said disco 2 leaky sunroof he said not to worry he has done loads

[nicks90]

here goes.


Take one discovery td5 ES with a perpetually soggy roof and a multitude of drips onto the drivers legs and rear seat and try to find out why its leaking and fix it without trashing all the clips, headlining and panels.

To start with CLEAN ALL YOUR TOOLS.
There is no point trying to prise off plastic clips and manhandling bits of trim if your hands and tools are covered in cv grease. You'll just end up making a mess and really pissing off the wife when she sees the interior covered in black fingerprints.



Next up is to start dismantling everything.
On the Disco 2, the roof lining edges go under the wide panels in the rear, the door trim between the rear and front doors and under the front windscreen trim where the tweeters are mounted. This means to drop the lining you have to remove all the trim pieces.


We started at the back and worked our way forward, using a large tray to collect all the bits nad pieces as we went. We subdivided the interior into 3 areas, so we could keep all the bits and clips together in a logical order - Boot, rear seats, front.
So, first things first:-

Drop the dickie seat headrest down and pull off the plastic trim along the top of the roof surrounding the headrest mounts. There are 2 little slider bits of trim that slot between the headrest and the main trim. Be careful of removing these as they are flimsy peices of cr@p.
Behind this panel are 2 small plastic clips holding the rooflining to the very back of the roof. remove.


Once thats off, move on to the main side rear panels. These are held on by a combination of 5 long plastic pushclips and 2 little screws under plastic covers. The covers snap off really easily so be careful. then just pull off the alarm motion sensor, its held on by 2 metal friction clips and comes off easy enough.

Once you have removed the clips, you need to remove the rear grab handles. Each end of the handle has a little cover. Squeeze the covers between your fingers and they pop open. Behind each handle is a little black plastic spacer.
KEEP THESE REAR HANDLES AWAY FROM THE REST OF THE GRAB HANDLES - as the bolts are alot longer and the other 4 grab handles in the car wont fit in these positions when it comes to refitting!


Now the only thing stopping you removing the panel is the rear dickie seat 3 point seatbelt. Remove the 17mm bottom anchor bolt and then remove the plastic trim covering the whole in the panel that the belt feeds through, there should now be enough room to feed the belt and clip through the hole and the rear panel should now be free,

it isnt easy remove without damaging it, but if you push the bottom of the trim down and pull the top of the trim towards you it will pop out.




Now you have the rear panels out and gathered all the clips and trim together

- move to the back seat.

Remove the grab handles - same as above
Remove the top console next to the sunroof. This has the switch for the rear sunroof and rear courtesy light in it.
All the fittings are hidden!
Prise out the lamp lense. The lamp itself is held directly to the roof by 2 8mm nuts. Remove the bulb first or you will make sparks and possibly let the smoke out of the wiring loom!
Next to the light is a small plastic panel hiding a screw. Prise the panel off and undo.
Prise out the sunroof switch (carefully) and there is a screw hidden under there as well.


the centre console should now drop down with all various wires / connectors hanging down.

now pull off the felt trim that goes round the sunroof aperture and hides the join between the sunroof and the rooflining, and put to one side safely


Now move on the front! Almost there...

Door trim.
all the door trim needs pulling off between the front and rear doors and the front doors and windscreen.
To do this pull off the rubber door seals on all 4 doors. This will give you access to the little clips (about 2mm wide and thin so careful) to go round the edge of the metal door pillars. Using point nosed pliars pull them outwards and then back. I think there were 4 on each panel. The panel is now held on bu 2 large push connectors hidden behind the panel. Just grab hold of the panel and sharply tug it away from the door pillar and it will come away.
The panels between the doors wont come fully away as the front seat belts (and height adjusters) go through them - but pull the belt out a couple of foot and the panels will tuck out of the way behind the front seat headrests.

The front panels between the door and windscreen are also removed in the same way - but dont pull them too hard as the tweeters are built in and the spare wiring that connects to them was very short. Again i just left them dangling as they werent in the way.


Next - roof console above the front seats.
Remove grab handles
Unscrew the 3 screws holding the hinge of each sun visor in place. Be careful pulling the visor away as there are wires and a connector going to each for the vanity lights. The other end of the sun visor has a little hook it clips into. At the front of the hook is a little cover (VERY brittle) that opens a hole through the hook allowing access to the screw holding the clip to the roof. Unscrew and wiggle the hook until it comes out.
next up the map pockets and console.
each map pocket has about 5 screws. pain in the ass to get out cos they`re deeply set in narrow placcy tubes and you cant see or feel if your screwdriver is seated properly.
Prise out the courtesy light lense and remove the buld and unbolt it and remove the light unit.
The whole centre console should now drop down.
Unclip the 3 big connectors to the sunroof switches, the connector and earth on the courtesy light and its all out!



Now, pull the rear of the headlining down and put the dickie seat headrest back up and you can then withdraw the headlining out the back door.
It is a tight squeeze and does involve a bit of pushing and shoving and gentle bending. Dont worry about creases, as long as you dont go overboard no permanent creases will remain in the fabric or fibreglass headlining.
Once its all out it should look like this:-





the problem I found was one of the drain pipes where it pushes onto the plastic tube on the drain cup had snapped. the end of the plastic crain cup was inside the pipe and it was a clean break.



Out came the araldite and glued it back on,
Whilst i was there and had access to all the drain pipes and plastic cups, i made sure all the pipes were obstruction free and re-sealed all the plastic cups to the sunroof frames.


now you will have various piles of bits to put back together




refitting it the reverse of removal!

hahahaha

actually the whole thing was alot more straight forward than i thought it would be. None of the clips broke and appear to be made of stronger stuff than the crappy plastic clips used in the disco 1 and defenders!
Excluding the time it took to clean out the pipes and resealing and gluing - i reckon it took about 3 hours to remove and refit the whole lot.

[andymach23]

Great job.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I'll definitely be able to make use of it.

Cheers

Andy

[Underdog]

Top post Nicks90, very interesting indeed.

[disco one]

I am attempting this on my disco2 this weekend, fingers crossed, thanks for the step by step nicks.
Anyone done rear airsprings on a disco2 ?
disco one

[Avy]

Well done cracking photos , my front roof has just sprung a leak above the screen mirror, so your photos will be a great help, although i run a Disco1 its round about the same removal..

[shaun.uk]

I spoke with a guy who had the same problem on his freelander, now my back sunroof is leaking on my td5 he recommended a mobile sunroof repairer, i gave the guy a call and he his coming out friday to replace the inner seal and check it over at the cost of about £90 all in, ill update after he has done the job but he removes the headlining etc .Best thing was he laughed when i said disco 2 leaky sunroof he said not to worry he has done loads

Hi just like to say 1st off, excellent forum , i have gained a lot of tips from here for my newly purchased disco 2 td5, i have had a few niggles of which i have sorted, just this last one for now


I have also got a leak in my Disco 2 (just above driver side sunshade), i dont suppose anyone has a number of a mobile sunroof repairer around the lincoln area do they? I have looked everywhere for one with no success.
Cheers if any one can help, also cheers for a excellent forum

Shaun

[nicks90]

just a small update to say i had a reoccurance of the leak from the front sunroof......

but i have found you can drop the front part of the headlining down in less than 15 minutes to get full access!!!
take out the front roof console and front sunvisors.
then remove all 4 grab handles above front and rear doors and then pop off the plastic trim on the A and B pillars.
headling now drops down and rests about 18" giving you unrestricted access to the fron sunroof.

My new leak had been caused by my rushing the fix on the first leak!
I had reglued the pipe onto the drain cup (see photos in earlier post) but i had disturbed the original black mastik sealing the cup to the frame. This allowed water to leak past the mastik and run down the headlining and leak from the courtesy light and sunroof switches.
A good smear of silicone sealant all round both cups and sprayed the whole sunroof with a jetwash (my god, the quantity of water that leaks in and drains into the cups / down the drain pipes is amazing!) and refitted the headlining again.

total time to fix - 45 minutes.

i think the main amount of time it took to do the whole headlining removal was buggering about with the plastic panels at the back in the load bay and messing about with the dickie seat belts etc.
so if you just have a leaky front sunroof - its dead easy and quick to get to.

[shaun.uk]

just a small update to say i had a reoccurance of the leak from the front sunroof......

but i have found you can drop the front part of the headlining down in less than 15 minutes to get full access!!!
take out the front roof console and front sunvisors.
then remove all 4 grab handles above front and rear doors and then pop off the plastic trim on the A and B pillars.
headling now drops down and rests about 18" giving you unrestricted access to the fron sunroof.

My new leak had been caused by my rushing the fix on the first leak!
I had reglued the pipe onto the drain cup (see photos in earlier post) but i had disturbed the original black mastik sealing the cup to the frame. This allowed water to leak past the mastik and run down the headlining and leak from the courtesy light and sunroof switches.
A good smear of silicone sealant all round both cups and sprayed the whole sunroof with a jetwash (my god, the quantity of water that leaks in and drains into the cups / down the drain pipes is amazing!) and refitted the headlining again.

total time to fix - 45 minutes.

i think the main amount of time it took to do the whole headlining removal was buggering about with the plastic panels at the back in the load bay and messing about with the dickie seat belts etc.
so if you just have a leaky front sunroof - its dead easy and quick to get to.

Hi, cheers for this info.I too only had a leak at the front (drivers side) so i attempted this job today and looks like i had the same problem as you, the small plastic lug had snapped clean off into the pipe, i only had to remove the front driverside to gain access to the problem.didnt take that long to complete and hopefully i have cured the problem.
Just thought i would say thanks for all the info and photos, these helped a lot.
Cheers

PS..... The damp stains that i had have now been completly removed by the mrs just using pound shop upholstery cleaner and it has come up like brand spanking new (just a tip in case anyone else has the problem)
Shaun

[Les Henson]

Nice thread Nick - good for the archive I reckon.

Shame about the rat though -




Les

[nicks90]

Nice thread Nick - good for the archive I reckon.

Shame about the rat though -




Les

rat!!!
he`s a 'Gorton terrier' If you know gorton in manchester - you'll understand what i mean!
think of a doberman with little legs and a bad attitude. Plus he's an excellent rabbiter!

I dare you to call him a rat to his face!

[Hedgehog]

Nice post. Just got an Mreg 300Tdi auto, and the roofs leak. (What a surprise)
Was aware that Disco's have the problem.... Googled for guidance and came across your help.
So I've joined the forum.
Like what I see.