Roof drains - kink in pipe!

[Jerry999]

This post may be helpful to others -

VW California T6.1 July 2022

On checking the roof drains on our newly acquired 'Van' I found that the LH side front drain was slow to drain compared with the RH side.
The LH side did not gurgle like the RH side.
I followed all of the advice on this site to clear the blockage to no avail.
I even removed the scuttle panel and checked the outlets and found no issues.

During dashcam fitting I removed both A pillar trims and found the issue.

The LH drain tube has a kink in it that must have been there from new.


To fix for now I've added some plastic spiral cable wrap to take the kink out.


It now drains quickly and gurgles.

Interestingly, both sides have flattened tubes near grab handle bolts (but it doesn't seem to cause an issue).


Questions -
1, Does anyone have photos showing their drain pipe routing, I'd like to know mine is normal?

The RH side on mine routes differently to the LH side -

2, I think the LH pipe is too long causing the kink, does anyone know if the outlet under the scuttle panel just pulls out (Item 5)?
I'd like to try and cut an inch from the end of the drain tube (Item 13) and refit it (and remove the spiral wrap).


Thanks.

 

[MyrtleMoo]

As it happens, I do still have a (not very good) photo from when I did my dashcam install, in case it's useful. I was too chicken to fully remove the A-pillar trim so only partially separated it and fed the dashcam cable through so I've no idea if I had any kink in the pipe further down. Here's the only image I have though, which at least shows the similar routing behind the grab handle bracket.

 

[Jerry999]

Thanks, that’s a good start and probably confirms that mine is at least on the correct side of the grab handle bracket.