2011 RAM 2500 Sunroof Drain Tube Replacement

[Barryrey]

Has anyone replaced their sunroof drain tubes on a 4th Gen RAM 2500. The right rear tube has been discontinued by Mopar, I did go ahead and order two of the the left rear ones, they look like they have pretty straight bends but before I started to tearing things apart I thought I would ask to see if anyone else has attempted the replacement and if so are they truly two different tubes for rear right and rear left. The front ones are the same part number for both right and left.

I did try to have the dealer fix the leak but they said they were too clogged and that the rears were no longer available, which I found to be only true for the right rear.

 

[jws123]

If they are clogged use some CLR let it sit aswell as lightly compressed air after that my jeep does the same thing

 

[Jeepwalker]

Do the tubes commonly rot/break? Or are they just plugged up completely?

Usually what needs to happen is the tubes get loaded up with dust and debris and the crud needs to be rodded out from the bottom of the hose/tubing. There's probably dirt down there now ...from rotted bugs and dust. Like a compost.

I have a length of thin cable like 8' long I got at the hardware store, with some tape I wrapped around the end (so it's not frayed and won't 'catch' inside the tubes). What I do is once the tubes are cleaned of hard-packed dirt, I slide the cable on through and tape a piece of plastic ...(like from a plastic bag), then pull the plastic on through "just a little". Then I pour some warm soapy water into the tube and as I pull the cable and plastic through, along with the water, it does a good job cleaning inside the tubes real well ..like new. Repeat another time or two as needed. If you don't clean the inside of the tubes then the texture remains rough and gives stuff some 'edge' to hang onto.

Also,
It's a real good idea to clean off the rubber seal around the sunroof and the body. Often what happens is a lot of dust gets on the sunroof gasket and can allow some water through. A guy almost needs to clean both edges off with a warm soapy sponge once or twice a year. On my Hummer, I ended up buying a new gasket and that solved a lot of the leak problems I was having.

 

[Barryrey]

Thanks for the cleaning advice. The dealer spent hours on it and said they could not get it unclogged. I tried going up the front ones (bottom up) with some weed eater string but could not make it all the way through. I was thinking of trying to find something stronger like your cable suggestion.

 

[Jeepwalker]

I found it helps to 'twist' the cable as you feed it up (esp to make around the bends), or down if you work from the top down. Make the tape on the end kind of a 'ball'. That will also help make it around corners.

Sounds like yours is really clogged! Another thing you might try (and this might work better than the cable in your case) is to get some small diameter vinyl tubing that'll fit inside the drain tubes. Hook it to pressurized water with a valve on it. Feed it up. The water spraying out the end should erode the dirt and muck away...and the debris will drain down. Try that.

You might still get some thin cable bc once you get the tubes cleaned, you can still slide the cable down with some plastic on the ends to clean the inside of the tubes real clean. Let us know how it worked ...what the best solution is/was.