slipkid
10+ Year Contributor
- 105
- 1
- Mar 31, 2009
-
schwenksville,
Pennsylvania
I was able to put the new seal on today (again thanks muchly to Seavee for all his posts on this).
A couple things to mention:
- Mine had some bad rust bubbling on the metal right in the back near where the old seam was, exactly like Seavee predicted. I scraped/sanded/treated/brushed as much of that as I could before putting on the new seal. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of doing it 100% right, which would be putting on Ospho rust treatment, letting it sit overnight, scraping, painting it, etc. I had to do whatever I could in one shot today.
- I was afraid that if I got rid of the rust bubbles in the bad spot I wouldn't even have enough metal underneath 'em to have anything to attach the new seal to. Luckily I still did, but most likely over time the rust will come back and further eat it away. There were a few other minor rust bubbly spots in other places too, but it was the area near the old seam that was really really bad.
- To put the new seal in I had to use a rubber mallet and worked slowly around the edges while also using a paint scraper type tool like a shoehorn to get the seal to sit properly. Mostly I needed to use the shoehorn action on the top side but a few times the seal kinked up on the underside and I had to pry it out on that side better with the scraper then give it a couple more wacks with the mallet.
- Using a dremel type cutting tool is absolutely necessary to get the seal end cut properly!!! Seavee saved me a lot of grief with that tip. I had problems getting the perfect size cut though, kept coming up a bit too long on the edge as far as hitting the piece already in place and trouble getting the 2 ends to mate properly. I don't think I did it too well and may try putting something on the top edge tomorrow to seal it better. It is way better than it was though, which was a gap back there letting the water in.
- Here's something that I am not sure is a good sign or a bad sign. I'm thinking (hoping) it is a good sign. Actually 2 things. First, after putting the newly sealed glass back in place then closing the sunroof for the first time the thing definitely growled as it went TIGHTLY into place. The old one used to just slam back into place with seemingly little effort or resistance but now it kind of "groaned" as it went in. And used to be when I would close my door the already closed sunroof would kind of pop up & down like the air forced into the car by shutting the door (with window up) would escape through the roof and force the sunroof to bounce. But now, closing the door, the roof stays perfectly still. It just seems to be so much tighter now.
I wanted to take my headliner out and examine things from underneath plus even test having water poured and top and see if I could see anything dripping in but I ran out of time to do any of that. Have to save that for another day. In the meantime I am going to hit some junkyards & see if I can get lucky and find a backup sunroof in good condition, or at least use a junkyard one as practice for taking my own headliner out.
Thanks again for all the great info in this thread!
A couple things to mention:
- Mine had some bad rust bubbling on the metal right in the back near where the old seam was, exactly like Seavee predicted. I scraped/sanded/treated/brushed as much of that as I could before putting on the new seal. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of doing it 100% right, which would be putting on Ospho rust treatment, letting it sit overnight, scraping, painting it, etc. I had to do whatever I could in one shot today.
- I was afraid that if I got rid of the rust bubbles in the bad spot I wouldn't even have enough metal underneath 'em to have anything to attach the new seal to. Luckily I still did, but most likely over time the rust will come back and further eat it away. There were a few other minor rust bubbly spots in other places too, but it was the area near the old seam that was really really bad.
- To put the new seal in I had to use a rubber mallet and worked slowly around the edges while also using a paint scraper type tool like a shoehorn to get the seal to sit properly. Mostly I needed to use the shoehorn action on the top side but a few times the seal kinked up on the underside and I had to pry it out on that side better with the scraper then give it a couple more wacks with the mallet.
- Using a dremel type cutting tool is absolutely necessary to get the seal end cut properly!!! Seavee saved me a lot of grief with that tip. I had problems getting the perfect size cut though, kept coming up a bit too long on the edge as far as hitting the piece already in place and trouble getting the 2 ends to mate properly. I don't think I did it too well and may try putting something on the top edge tomorrow to seal it better. It is way better than it was though, which was a gap back there letting the water in.
- Here's something that I am not sure is a good sign or a bad sign. I'm thinking (hoping) it is a good sign. Actually 2 things. First, after putting the newly sealed glass back in place then closing the sunroof for the first time the thing definitely growled as it went TIGHTLY into place. The old one used to just slam back into place with seemingly little effort or resistance but now it kind of "groaned" as it went in. And used to be when I would close my door the already closed sunroof would kind of pop up & down like the air forced into the car by shutting the door (with window up) would escape through the roof and force the sunroof to bounce. But now, closing the door, the roof stays perfectly still. It just seems to be so much tighter now.
I wanted to take my headliner out and examine things from underneath plus even test having water poured and top and see if I could see anything dripping in but I ran out of time to do any of that. Have to save that for another day. In the meantime I am going to hit some junkyards & see if I can get lucky and find a backup sunroof in good condition, or at least use a junkyard one as practice for taking my own headliner out.
Thanks again for all the great info in this thread!
