draco

Those bolts I thought were for the cover plate that was part of the kit.

draco

Silicone in the bolt holes works a treat. That's what the dealer ended up doing so it's all sealed now. Now just have to figure out how to get the carpet and "underlay" dry.

Sandhopper

You will not be able to leave the bolts in if you go with the one piece molding. RTV will seal the holes nicely.

MrBruin09

Does anyone know where I can purchase Moon Roof one piece molding?

MC5Wes

I got my one piece inserts from my Lexus dealer. 100 dollars each.

MrBruin09

so these are the parts we purchase from Lexus and use silicone to glue them?

MC5Wes

Yes, You buy two panoramic moon roof inserts. Remove all of the old rack pieces.

The inserts have clips that hold it in place. Silcone RTV is used to cover the bolt holes. On the inside.

And also to cover up the small gap on the front. To stop water from pooling.

draco

The water will pool (as I found out) underneath the passenger footwell, and depending on where most of the water flows through, can hit the driver's side and also just in front of the rear seats. There are 4 drain holes where this water can run out, but they are obviously sealed. As I had the great "honour" of not sealing these holes properly, my carpet got wet and the stink becomes very bad. A lot of forums say that the best way to dry it is to stick the heater on and leave the windows open slightly so the smell can go away. What they don't mention however is that the underlay underneath the carpet can get wet and stay wet, so you would need to dry that as well. A good way of doing this would be to dry it in the sun and leave it out in the air to dry. In saying that, this was how I spent 2.5 hours on Saturday removing my carpet. Followed of course by another 3 hours on Sunday putting it all back together again. Here are some pics of the strip and put back together again fun I had.

** Seat Removal **

draco

** Carpet Removed **







** Driver's Seat back in so I could still drive the car **

draco

** The Carpet **

http://members.amnet.net.au/~draco3/...ped_carpet.jpg
http://members.amnet.net.au/~draco3/...ed_carpet2.jpg

** The Underneath of the carpet if you ever wanted to know what it looked like - it's not that insulated **



** Added some extra padding here and in the gaps between the panel and the rear wheels - I do believe it has made a difference with noise in the car **

draco

In case anybody wanted to know what a couple of the things are that are lying there by the driver and passenger side

* The black slimline unit where the passenger seat would be is a DVD player for the pull down LCD monitor for the rear.

* The silver rectangular box is a 12V DC to AC converter (so I can plug in stuff like a laptop, or a PS3/XBOX). If only I could figure out a way to get rid of the existing NAV with integrated climate control buttons and replace it with a car PC ). The blue cables are the inputs (video and stereo).

* The black box by the driver's footwell is an aftermarket Bluetooth module that integrates with the stereo.

The best part, all these bits were fitted before I bought the car. FTW!!!

MC5Wes

Draco
Is the water from the 4 roof rack bolts? Or from clogged sunroof drain holes?

RX330inFL

Can you drive it around with just the driver's seat installed?

Carver

Draco, you are not a man of half measures, astounding job!

draco

The water was from the 4 roof rack bolts as they were not sealed as well as I thought they were. Sunroof drain holes were checked by Lexus who advised that they were okay.

I did for a day. Strangely even with everything removed, the RX was still not as loud as I thought it would be. Sure parts of the exhaust (around the headers) could be heard while accelerating, but it wasn't off putting or noisy or droney at all. In fact when you weren't accelerating it was pleasantly quiet. The only other noise was tyre noise from the back, but then again, it wasn't really noisy at all. I have to say though with all the seats removed, the amount of space in the car as well as your visibility around the car increases dramatically.

Thanks Carver. The wife asked what are you going to do. At that point I said, it can't be that hard to remove the carpet and it wasn't. Just time consuming. That and also $2800 to replace the carpet seemed a little ludicrous.