sunroof seal replacement how dificult ?

[pino635csi]

Hi , has anyone done a seal replacement for the sunroof? how involved is it and does the sunroof need to be removed? and if yes are there any detailed steps on removal, and can it be done with the headliner in place ?



Thank you !
Pino

[dmac156]

I've done it. It's not the most fun job that I've done. The sunroof headliner has to come off in order to get the sunroof out. Getting that back in place was the challenging part of the job. Other than that, the actual removal and replacement of the sunroof was pretty straight forward. There are some good writeups online, and IIRC, 2 methods of removing the sunroof headliner.

[Badgas]

I have done it two ways.
1. Noticing that the seal in my car was in two pieces. Slide it back 6" or so and remove the front section. After removal, I used it as template to cut the new seal to match in length. Cleaned the lip and pressed on the new one. I takes a surprising amount of pressure. I might consider a lubricant wiped on with a rag if I did it this way again.

The back half is a bit trickier. Tilt the sunroof up in the back and removed the rear half of the seal. Not really half as the join in the two pieces is was forward of the mid point of the panel, about where the tilted panel crosses the plane of the roof. Mark the center of the panel and new seal and press the new one on. The difficult part is getting the last inch pressed on. I used my picks, in particular the 90 degree one to slide into the gap and pull up on the seal. Without lube, it took some force and I slipped more than once snaking my finger and once snaking on the new seal a bit, but with patience both sides came ip to a snug fit.

The second time was when I did some paint work. You only need to detach the panel covering the sunroof it self, you do not need to touch the main headliner, only the bit covering the sunroof panel. There isa procedure for that in the manuals, slide it back a few inches and gently pull the front edge fasteners loose, then slide it back. This exposes some screws that attach the sunroof panel to the slide and pivot hardware. Undo the screws and remove the panel. There are two screws on the two pivot piece. and two on each forward slide plus an adjustment screw. Do not change the adjustment screw as it affects the height of the panel leading edge relative to the roof. CAREFUL to not remove the front slide hardware from the track as getting it back in is major PITA. Putting it on is the revers, I struggled with reinstallation of the headliner panel. Follow the procedure in the manuals there.