It goes down behind the rear door and dumps into a cavity. You cannot access the bottom of the drain tube.

To blow them out, I remove the B and C pillar trim, stuff my hands up above the headliner and pull the drain tube off of the sunroof assembly. Then I use compressed air to gently blow air down the tube. Gently because you don't want to pop the tube before an obstruction (aka, likely somewhere that will end up leaking into the cabin) by stuffing 100psi of compressed air down it with nowhere to go. There was a tech bulletin about plugged rear drain tubes. They filled the cavity it goes down into with expanding foam and the foam restricted the line in some cases. Since you cannot get to the end of the hose to blow crap up, you will never blow something through the restriction if it doesn't fit. The fix was running new rear drain tube lines and you put the holes on the back side of the rear wheel wells.

 

Thank you kindly, great info.


A few questions if I may. Are the drain grommets accessible from the interior? Also how do you remove the B pillar trim, I took out the little square cover, but saw no scew like on the c pillar? Any tips?

 

Wait...there's rear drain tubes too?! Damnit...I thought it was just the front tubes. This may explain why my issue hasn't been resolved.

 

What a PIA job. Just as 2005JGC described, the rear drains run down the C pillar (inside) and down a narrow gap between the leading edge of the rear wheel fender between the inner and outer fender. And yes, they are encased in expanding foam. There is no way to get to the end point and the foam glues in the lower half of the drain tube.

Since my headliner was tough to get enough of a gap to get my hands in there to reach the drain tube at the sunroof, I chose instead to remove the rear quarter trim panel. This is fairly easily done, 2 screws and a few edge clips. Start by removing the door sill plate and work up the wheel arch side, removing the upper C panel and then unclip the area in the cargo bay, where you will see 2 Phillips screws that also must be removed. If you have a 12v outlet in the rear, once you move the panel slightly out of the way that can be disconnected, and remove the side panel altogether. With the area exposed, remove the seat belt retractor, 1x T50 bolt and then peel away the rubber baffling. With the hole exposed, you can now see the rear drain line. I chose to cut it at this location so that I could blow it out both upwards to the sunroof and downwards to the drain hole. Luckily, there were no physical obstructions. Someone mentioned that it sounds like a Moose call, and sure enough it does, regardless of which end the air is blown thru. I had silicone tubing that was a tight fit to slip over the drain tubing to recouple the two halves together. Also leaves you a service port for future maintenance as needed.

I'm pretty sure most folks who tackle sunroof draining issues only do the front pair and may leave the rears clogged. All sunroofs that I have dealt with over the years have 4 drains, 1 on each corner, but the rears almost always go down the c-C pillar, and are nearly impossible to see from inside the sunroof assembly with the sunroof open. Luckily in MOST cars, unlike Jeep, the drain end point is accessible under the chassis. Why the chose the route they did vs running the drain port after the rear wheel arch, as mentioned in the fix, is beyond me.

Thanks to 2005JGC for all your help, very informative, and my drains are now....hopefully, ready for the torrential rain storms we get in South FL.

 

Without running out and taking a quick gander, its totally slipping my mind what the front looks like. Pretty sure its a cover that pops off the top seatbelt mount then you have to use a T55 to unbolt the mount from the slider and then its just clips and pulls off... When I take a look I will update if I am wrong.

To be honest, I am pretty sure with just the C pillar trim and pull the door seal that overlaps the headliner some and it will pull down enough you can get your hand up there. Now that I am thinking about it, I am pretty sure this was what I did last time. Once you get the hose off, its long enough that you can pull it over to the edge of the headliner where you have better access to do whatever activities you had planned for it.

 

I saw on a Youtube video where a guy got some string trimmer line and used that as a snake to clear the drain lines. Doesn't seem like it would be able to damage the lines since it is just rigid enough to let you push it through and maybe unclog a small clog. Anyone ever try this or is it bad advice?

 

Yes, you can use trimmer line to clear the drains. The font drains are accessible with the sunroof open. The rears are obscured and not accessible via the sunroof opening. The front drains exit the body in the footwells just behind the side kick panels, should you need to access that end.

 

I went thru the process of tracking down what I thought was a sunroof leak almost 3 yrs ago. It wasn't the sunroof. But I did get a pretty good picture of the inside of the WK's cabin with the headliner out. For those of you looking for a visual location of the rear sunroof drains, see this post from one of my threads: https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f67/05-wk-hemi-high-mileage-list-problems-4206073/index3.html#post40340027

If you look at that first pic at the top of the C-pillar and just above the side-curtain airbags, you'll see a black hose that goes from the C-pillar to the back of the sunroof. That is the drain tubes.

In the above listed thread, go down to post #41 and I give a pretty good description of how to remove the headliner also.

 

Seeing mention of a tech bulletin for the rear drain lines. Anyone have a link or soft copy of that document? Not having much luck searching for it. Thanks!