rich11235
Hi all, I had searched the various forums and although there's lots of info about fault finding and diagnosing water ingress, there wasn't (as far as I could find) a concise guide to how to fix the infamous A-pillar roof drains (brown tubes) if you do discover that they are the reason for your soggy feet and musty carpets
So here's what I found when I dug deeper. On both sides, at the roof drain inlet up top, I had syringed some water in, on the passenger side (UK, LH side) the water happily ran out of the wheel arch onto the tyre, on the drivers side, it mysteriously did not appear anywhere, and squinting through the access panel into the scuttle area, I could see that the valve outlet was completely dry and had not passed any water for a long time.
This is squinting in from the dash end panel (it just prises off/unclips). Terrible picture due to difficulty of getting iPhone to focus, but you can see the end of the brown tube is detached from the valve. More importantly, it doesn't look like it overlaps to any degree. Don't know if its been like that since build, or whether the brown tube shrinks lengthwise with age (van is 11 years old) but it doesn't look like there'd be any chance to push enough of the tube back into the valve
I think its been happening for a long time, because look at this rust round the brackets/fixings at the end of the dash:
What to do? Well, there are few screws to undo (Torx type, about 6-7 of them) to remove the underneath panel below the dash (above the pedals, where the OBD port is). I also released the OBD port from its bracket and move dit out the way, it just made it easier to get my left hand in (take your watch off) to get hands on the valve.
As expected, absolutely no way there would be enough give (lengthwise) on the brown tube to get it back in. I took the A-pillar trim off to see if the tube was caught up somewhere, but it wasn't, all sat correctly in its little clips. I have no explanation as to why the tube now won't fit into the valve; either crap design by VW (wouldn't be the first) or, as I said - axial shrinkage with age? You can see here how far "off" it is
Here's what I did to fix it. Basically a cut and shut on the tube. I did it it in about the vicinity of the grab handle, there seemed to be a natural recess where the cable ties I used would sit out of the way. I spliced in a short length of PVC tube ( I think 8mm OD fits). As you can see, water injected in the top flows perfectly, and once I had then stuffed the end of the brown pipe into the valve (and checked it was overlapped with the cable tie on the valve spigot), then it runs nicely out of the wheel arch:
I was well chuffed with this. Took about 30 mins all in. Just take care with all the clips and fixings for the various trim panels
I hope that's helpful to someone
So here's what I found when I dug deeper. On both sides, at the roof drain inlet up top, I had syringed some water in, on the passenger side (UK, LH side) the water happily ran out of the wheel arch onto the tyre, on the drivers side, it mysteriously did not appear anywhere, and squinting through the access panel into the scuttle area, I could see that the valve outlet was completely dry and had not passed any water for a long time.
This is squinting in from the dash end panel (it just prises off/unclips). Terrible picture due to difficulty of getting iPhone to focus, but you can see the end of the brown tube is detached from the valve. More importantly, it doesn't look like it overlaps to any degree. Don't know if its been like that since build, or whether the brown tube shrinks lengthwise with age (van is 11 years old) but it doesn't look like there'd be any chance to push enough of the tube back into the valve
I think its been happening for a long time, because look at this rust round the brackets/fixings at the end of the dash:
What to do? Well, there are few screws to undo (Torx type, about 6-7 of them) to remove the underneath panel below the dash (above the pedals, where the OBD port is). I also released the OBD port from its bracket and move dit out the way, it just made it easier to get my left hand in (take your watch off) to get hands on the valve.
As expected, absolutely no way there would be enough give (lengthwise) on the brown tube to get it back in. I took the A-pillar trim off to see if the tube was caught up somewhere, but it wasn't, all sat correctly in its little clips. I have no explanation as to why the tube now won't fit into the valve; either crap design by VW (wouldn't be the first) or, as I said - axial shrinkage with age? You can see here how far "off" it is
Here's what I did to fix it. Basically a cut and shut on the tube. I did it it in about the vicinity of the grab handle, there seemed to be a natural recess where the cable ties I used would sit out of the way. I spliced in a short length of PVC tube ( I think 8mm OD fits). As you can see, water injected in the top flows perfectly, and once I had then stuffed the end of the brown pipe into the valve (and checked it was overlapped with the cable tie on the valve spigot), then it runs nicely out of the wheel arch:
I was well chuffed with this. Took about 30 mins all in. Just take care with all the clips and fixings for the various trim panels
I hope that's helpful to someone
