Has anyone gone from sunroof to stock?

[pondking]

of course sheet metal would be the answer 

but 

i believe there is gonna be dents 

 

a high school teacher told me lead would be the answer or metal epoxy

 

???

 

Anybody have a thread on this or know of the best process ?

i would like to know some info before i take it to a body shop

[Draker]

I think Wayno did it or something similar on a truck.

[Draker]

I think the easiest thing would be to just replace with another sunroof.. but if you were set of filling it... take out the roof, flange the edge with a flange tool. Get the sheet metal that is same thickness as the roof and cut to fit. stitch weld it in... filler filler filler or lead. Prep and paint.

 

That's how would do think about doing it. I'm not even close to an expert on auto body work though..

[datzenmike]

A panel cut from another roof, maybe and weld it in. I have a sun sorry the PC term is now Moon roof? on my 620 and wish I had never done it. It fucks the looks up like a hood scoop.

[dr.feltersnatch]

I would do a combination of the 2. I would flange it and then cut a panel from another roof, since it has a slight contour to it. a flat sheet would stand out pretty bad and it would be a bitch to shape it properly. then weld/fill/paint.

[wayno]

Since you have a sun/moon roof now, your head liner is screwed up anyway, and you will need a new one, so if you are sure you want to fill it, I would find another 510 roof, cut a piece out about an inch bigger than the hole your trying to fill, then remove the sun/moon roof, cut the headliner back or better yet, completely remove it.

Now take the donor piece and stick it up on the roof from the inside of the car and have someone use a felt pen to draw a line on the donor piece all the way around the hole, this line has to be stripped of all paint till you have bare metal, you also need to strip the sun/moon roof hole edge of paint also, you have to have clean bare metal all the way around the hole.

Now you need to cover everything inside of the car with something that cannot catch fire, and tarps will catch fire, it would actually be better to remove the entire interior.

Now you have someone with welding gloves on hold the piece up in position, while someone with a welder tacks the piece in position, do not try welding, you only tack sheet metal, otherwise it will WARP, you must tack it, then move 4 inches, tack it, move 4 inches, ect, ect, ect, once you get all the way around, then you tack it between each weld all the way around, then you start to skip gaps, you don't want to tack any closer than 4 inches apart, so you keep going around over and over tacking every 4 inches till the welds almost touch each other like in the photo below.

The reason I tell you to put the piece on from the inside is that it will take less filler to fix it, you can put it on the way I did in the photo above, but you will never get the correct curve of a stock roof, also the new headliner will hide the extra metal on the inside.

This is going to be hard to believe, but I have a mini cooper, I was talking to a shop that works on British cars, he told me that when panels are replaced on mini coopers these days, and they are uni-bodies, that instead of welding them in, they are now gluing them into position, this actually kinda freaks me out, but if you look into it, and I would look very hard myself, there might be a chance that you could glue the new panel into position, they use some kind of special epoxy, I would cover all the bases before going this route, as you don't want to go through all this work just to have that panel fall out someday, but the mini coopers are gluing in structural parts, so that epoxy must be some awesome stuff.

I hope this all makes sense to you, it likely would be easier just to buy a new sun/moon roof if yours is leaking, if it's not leaking................

[DatMo]

my friend had this problem on his 240 and he welded.

i thought that was the most work in the world though. especially on a 240sx.

 

try rockign a sunroof?

give it a bit to grow a liking to?

if otherwise take it off later

[Tristin]

Sunroofs can be cool B)

 

[captaingamez]

Sun roofs are fucking terrible things.

 

I am so busy screwing with mine that I missed this thread!!!!

 

Cut that bitch out and weld that bitch shut.

 

What prevented me from going this route was that the headliner is held up with listing wires, Unless you have a sun roof, then it is glued and held with one listing wire in the back, and I didnt want to have to fabricate the hooks for the 7 listing wires on the hard top. Then finding the original map light that only came in Deluxe and Diesel models is another headache.

 

Having said that, if I were to do this again, I would weld the bitch shut, theres just too many parts.

 

Honda makes it way easier, you just order a new roof skin and headliner, drill out the roofline welds, hit her with a head gun and voila!. Weld the new one in place, slap some body sealer in it and your done.

 

 

Also:

 

Sun Roof = Solid metal top

 

Moon Roof= Glass see through top.

[pondking]

does anybody have a 510 parts car that can spare a roof?

[pondking]

okay so I got the roof and heres the damage

 

 

[pondking]

any more structural advice?

[ggzilla]

There is no structure to the roof. Do what wayneo says.

[pondking]

should I place it on a chassis liner machine?

[ggzilla]

No. The roof pillars will hold the body straight.

[MikeRL411]

my friend had this problem on his 240 and he welded.

i thought that was the most work in the world though. especially on a 240sx.

 

try rockign a sunroof?

give it a bit to grow a liking to?

if otherwise take it off later

 

 

That's the reason I waited for my dealer to locate a 240SX that didn't have a factory or, even worse. a dealer installed sun roof.  And the extra bonus was a extra half inch of head room!

[captaingamez]

Sunroofs suck. But now mine works awesome. But it took a lot of work and hundreds of hours to restore all the parts.

 

I would have just welded it shut and called it a day, do the body work, make headliner mounts and such, make a headliner, ect.

 

Welding the entire top of the car back on is gonna be way more of a pain in the ass, IMHO.

[TheBirdistheWord]

Where's the rest of the donar dime I need a core support! lol

[pondking]

got it from a kool guy in san diego 

let me look at the messages 

 

maybe ask them 

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/pts/4502655322.html

[pondking]

I think it was kazumi 510 

 

http://community.ratsun.net/user/26433-kazumi-510/

[captaingamez]

There is no structure to the roof. Do what wayneo says.

Seriously? I think you need to go back to engineering school.

[pondking]

yea 

I was told it can cause the car to sort of seesaw 

and there would be gaps near my doors 

 

but that is if I remove the pillars

[captaingamez]

Yeah I would definitely consider a jig, or not doing it that way.

[ggzilla]

A typical aftermarket sunroof adds no supporting structure to the roof.

 

I recommend doing what wayneo says, and not removing the pillars.

[HOGIE]

I have a 620 roof skin if anyone needs to do this on their pickup.

http://community.ratsun.net/classifieds/item/4069-620-kc-cab-sheet-metal-parts/