Sun/Moonroof Problems

[jdmellor28]

I also took on this project , it looks to me like the guy i bought the car off of started this project and did it a bit half a$$ed ... only the front half of the rails had fresh silicone , so i took it all apart and sealed it up tight front to back !

+1 for using some sort of clamp or, like i used , ZIP TIES .. around the hose for the drains ! my car had nothing to hold the hoses tight to the drains ... possibly why i had a leak ?

but its all back together now !

Huge pain ! by my standards ... i was very tempted to just have my buddy come over with a welder and weld metel over the hole . Like i never had a sun roof in the first place ..
Also it has to weigh about half a ton !

i like simple .. there for less is more for me . one day if i run out of stuff to do i just might take the sun roof out and leave it out !

[kimokalihi]

Yeah but sunroofs are sweet.

BTW what brand/type of sealant are you guys using? What's the best stuff to use?

I'm pretty sure these cars come stock with nothing holding those hoses on. They just stay on by themselves. They're as tight as nuns' cunts! But unlike nuns' cunts, they have a good reason to be that tight! LOL

[jdmellor28]

i just used black silicone that you can get at any auto parts store .

and my drain hoses were tight but when you go to this much troubble to fix a leak and you have no idea where exactly its comming from .... you just go over kill and put some sort of clamps/zipties around the hoses !

[ericem]

Even if the hoses are loose which they are not why would they leak? The hose goes around the metal nipple. So technically it would drip down the hose and not outside of it. There really sound not be much of any water leaking by the seal anyway. My sunroof has 0 water getting by the seal. Literally after a carwash I open it up I see nothing anywhere even peaking around while water is spraying nothing. I don't even hear wind go by the seal when drying the car!!

I just make sure every so often to clean the seal with water and get another cloth to spray some silicone on to go around the seal and the metal surface.

[slunk33]

Either I really suck at these kind of things, or this project really sucked for me, or maybe a combination of the two. But this really sucked. And I'm still not done. Broken pieces, bloody knuckles, a trip to the junk yard, and a frozen nose...

After getting the headliner down (only broke two clips). I got the sunroof assembly into the house. I setup shop on the kitchen floor. Turns out my parents had a shop fix the sunroof back when they purchased the car used in 98 or so. I thought they only had the lines blown out, so I attempted the fix and found extreme resistance on the driver's side rail (should have done a leak test, first). Ended up bending the rail slightly and the pan severely. The instructions did not say exactly how to get the guides out of the rails, so I had to fill in the blanks, and I still don't know if I got the guides out properly or not. I somehow got the worm drive (or whatever you call it) completely out. And was able to pull the rails off the guides. I cleaned the old black silicon (I think) off, which was a pain in itself. Went to put the guides back on the rails, and ended up breaking two white plastic pivot pieces. There was no way to repair or replace the pieces.

Now what?!?

Called up Pull-A-Part on 112th and they had a 93, a 94, and two 90 Legacys. But they couldn't tell me if they had sunroofs or not. Great. Got to go out there, pay a buck just to see if they have a sunroof. Couldn't find the 94, but found the 90, and lo and behold it had a sunroof. I had the headliner out in no time (being the pro that I am, now). Problem I had was not being able to remove the glass first, so I had to pull the sunroof with the glass in, by myself.

Hauled that heavy mother back to the front of the yard (its a LOT heavier with the glass still in). I was surprised it was only $35! Also snagged a third brake light for my Vanagon and was out of there for $45! Finally, something went my way...

Was able to remove the rails and guides a lot easier this time around, and noticed the difference with the stock gasket as opposed to the fix that was done previously on mine. Used the new (older) sunroof parts minus the rails (didn't want to clean the rails again). Put everything back together and ended up jumping a couple of teeth on one side so the damn thing was not even! Figured out how to take the motor apart and even everything up.

Put the fixed sunroof assembly back in, tried it out, relay clicked, but no movement. SH*T!!! Pulled the relay and motor off the old assembly (the one that came out of my car), and swapped out the relays. Success!!! Now to leak test it and see where I'm at. The new glass is not level, so I'm going to need to change the shims. I just hope the rails didn't get bent too bad that it affects its operation. When I pop up the glass, then close it and try to open the roof, it snags, and I have to push it down. I'm thinking that could be a shim problem, hopefully its not the rails...

If you got this far, thanks for reading...

Brent

[jdmellor28]

Wow you had almost as much troubble as me ...
someone tried to fix mine before and ended up making it a huge pain for me , i bent some stuff too .. i just havent gone to the junk yard to get new stuff ... But mine all re done still leakes every time it rains and i back out of my spot i get wet !

in all honesty im all about scrapin the sun roof and welding over the hole ... some guys did it on here and posted the pics . They rally and had to do it . but it makes the most sence for me cuz i dont care about sunroofs i just dont want a wet A$$ every time it rains . PLUS that thing weighs 900 lbs.

so one day when my friend has time we are gona drop that thing out for the last time and weld !

[magicmike]

Guys come on. I don't even think the assembly weighs 25 lbs. As for breaking stuff. That usually happens when you are in a hurry and don't take a minute to see how something is being held on. If you didn't know how to take something off you should have stopped and come on here and ask.

This is what I do if I'm unsure about something. You can't be pissed off at the sunroof because you are impatient.

How do you bend anything when taking it apart? Obviously if its not moving there is something STILL holding it right? So your plan is to just force it until it bends or breaks?

[jdmellor28]

look , its heavyer than i need it to be , and like i said it would be just as good for me if i didnt have one at all .
as for me bending stuff ... someone had tried to use silicone on mine but only did the front half and must not have takin it out of the car ... did it half a$$ .. and the silicone was holding my rails down hard . thats why i bent mine .
and i dont have tons of time to stop and ask questions . i work and go to school full time and only have this one car to drive .
im lucky to get one day to work on stuff and i dont want to work on a crappy luxury item like a sun roof .

so my plan is to make my car better , by doing what i want to it.

in my opinion this car - sun roof = much better !

[magicmike]

ok then just silicone the shit out of the glass to the body. That will keep the water out.

[slunk33]

I probably am impatient. I read every post on this thread and figured if these other people were having success with the same limited information I had, then there must be something wrong with me. I found out how to put in the sunroof cover (the panel that slides under the sunroof to keep the sun out on hot days) by looking at the rails and noticing the notches in the back parts of the rails. (probably makes no sense). Does anyone know what the notches toward the front of the rails are for?

I didn't have time to work on getting the glass to even up to the roof today. Hopefully, I can work on it tomorrow. I know my mom would like her garage back, I wish I had a garage.

And I agree with MagicMike, the sunroof assembly is not very heavy if you remove the glass first. I had to take the sunroof assembly down with the glass in at the junk yard, and the assembly is quite heavy that way...

[crust productions.com]

Since my newly acquired 94 Legacy Wagon has a leaking sunroof I thought I would post some pics of the process.
Ive read every page of this thread and thought I would summarize.

NOTE - I did this by myself with no special tools and it took about an hour for removal .

Remove ALL items attached to the headliner .
Map light
Sun visors
Dome lights
Rear trunk light
Oh Sh*t handles

Remove A,B and C pillars aswell as rear shoulder belts .
These just pop out . There gonna be on there so dont think its gonna be easy. With alittle patience they will pop off.

Remove headliner thru trunk
This is what you should have once its removed.
You can see how wet mine was from the leakage.


and the inside of the car should look like this


Disconnect all 4 hoses and why your at it blow em out with compressed air.

Next remove all the sunroof assembly mounting bolts and slowly lower it down onto the seat headrests.

Slide it gently out the trunk.

Its heavy but not difficult at all . just take your time and be gentle.

Unbolt 8 12mm nuts from the sunroof assembly and hand crank the motor back so as to disconnect it from the front of the sunroof assembly . Then remove the glass up and out.


You can see hear that my back drain plugs had alot of crap in there . But this was only 50% of the problem.


Now remove the wind deflector as well as 3 6mm bolts on the back of the track. There are 2 on each track.
Carefully pry it up and this is what you will see.
This was the other 50% of my leak.



Start cleaning and scraping .

Also - if you have a wagon , check that your rear drain tubes are evenly and not twisting all over as this will cause them to back up and not flow properly. While your doing this check to make sure they are not pinched as well.Mine were pinched on the rear driver side . SO I cut the pinched part out and mended it with some fuel hose.




Basically youll give that sucker a good douching and then ad the adhesive and silicone under the rail. Let it sit for a bit before bolting it back down.

reassemble is the reversal of disassembly.

Cheers

[ScottyS]

Has anybody ever pulled out the sunroof assembly and just put the glass back in without the frame, rails, motor, etc?

Would this even work?

The idea would be to save a lot of weight up top, and make the glass a permanent part of the roof.

[jdmellor28]

you would have to find a way to fix the glass in place with out the rails and stuff ... and you would want to seal it up tight with silicone so it would not drip on your head .
it sounds like a pain to me .. but im going to take mine out all together and weld new metal over it deleting the sunroof completely so ..... whatever your in to ! im sure it could be done !

[ScottyS]

Yeah, I would silicone it well. I think welding it in place might be possible if one were very careful.

[jdmellor28]

sweet , give it a go ! let me know how it works out !

[Aerotech]

The glass panel is a loose fit in the opening, it will just fall right through, unless you fab up support tabs. Possibly weld/bolt tabs to the inside roof using the mounts that held the tray... the glass is held in place solely by the slider mechanism.

If you're ambitious, you could re-skin the roof to delete the hole completely.

[jdmellor28]

re skin the whole roof you say ?
think thats easyer or harder than just the hole for the sun roof ?

[Aerotech]

Maybe not the whole roof. There's been ideas kicked around before about making a plug for the sunroof hole, but you'd have to be pretty precise. I was thinking just cutting out the opening sheetmetal, flanging the edges, and gluing in a corresponding patch from a scrap Legacy using that new 3M body adhesive... bit o' Bondo, sand & paint. You'd shed about 25 lbs overhead weight, I'd guess. Install that set of rally vents you always wanted while you're at it.

[jdmellor28]

This build journal has some guys that took the sun roof out

http://bbs.legacycentral.org/viewtopic.php?t=39449

they weighed it and i think it was like 44 pounds ?
and they also just welded the hole .

i have heared about that 3m glue ! i hear its sweeeet .. it would help on the metal warping when you weld .

if you want to make a plug for the hole and glue it in, the plug should be made of something awesome like ..... CARBONFIBER !!!

- im gona look in to that ..

but do check out the rally build journal !

[jdmellor28]

look at this one ! its a honda site but they have the idea !

http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=1770017[/url]

[jdmellor28]

look at this one ! its a honda site but they have the idea !

http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=1770017

carbon fiber is so cool !

[Aerotech]

That's nice stuff... carbon fiber isn't hard to work, you can get it in bulk from Aircraft Spruce and other sources. Maybe just use the glass panel with seal as a mold form, or use a pink foam block and carve it out to fit. Lay up a nice plug, and rivet in as shown...

[jdmellor28]

yep ! i have a guy im talking to that works with carbon . we will see what he says . maybe if we can make some i will post them up for sale on here ?

[2.5_IMP]

yep ! i have a guy im talking to that works with carbon . we will see what he says . maybe if we can make some i will post them up for sale on here ?

I'm interested. I hate my leaky sunroof, and don't want to spend $85 -$100 on a new seal. It's a plug, or welding in a patch panel.

[kimokalihi]

Anybody know if there's a type of grease or lube I can use on the rubber seal around the glass so it makes a better seal and water does not come into the sunroof assembly? Mine is leaking and was resealed by the previous owner but it looks like he did not scrape all the black crap off and siliconed over it and it's still leaking.

What kind of grease/lube can I use that won't destroy the rubber seal or the paint on the roof?

After some reading it's looking like using anything petroleum based will destroy the seal. Apparently it's made of EPDM which is not rubber and lasts much longer than rubber due to high resistance to UV rays. Well, I'm going to go to town with the silicone sealant on the sunroof assembly then.