Sunroof

[fogged]

OK.... Heres the deal. I saw a coupe with a sunroof today. It made me wonder just how hard it would be to put an OEM sunroof in my car. Now I know the head liner would need to be changed, as well as a big ass hole cut in the roof, motor, some wireing, and a switch. If anyone has done this or seen it done. Id love to hear about it. :cheers:

[RamThis]

MAJOR work. Go pony up the dough for an aftermarket sunroof. I have done the grafting of a sunroof from one Accord to another, and it will require a complete strip of the interior, lots of welding, custom fabrication, full body work of the roof skin and paint, etc. I have mine done minus the primer and paint, and though I could probably do the swap myself in a couple evenings, I dont think anyone else could do it that quick having never done it before. I learned ALOT about how to do it, but it requires a ton of work.

Mostly because both cars have a totally different roof and support structure underneath, depending on whether it has the sunroof or not when it's built. The support structure under a non-sunroof car does not even come close to resembling the sunroof equipped one. The skin of the roof where the opening for the sunroof is, has a rolled and formed edge to it as well, that also connects into its special substructure. ALL THIS has to be cut from the donor car, intact, a hole cut in the roof of the project car, ALL the old substructure removed from the project car, then weld, upside down mind you, the transplant parts, weld up the roof skin around the sunroof opening, body seam seal the arches of the substructure to the underside of the skin, then start doing body work to get rid of all the wrinkles and ripples in the roof the welding created. This is the ONLY way to make a Honda OEM sunroof work.


Now, on the flipside, an aftermarket sunroof is totally different. Where a factory roof has the molded in flange all around the opening, an aftermarket sunroof uses a plastic trim ring, with a very small lip that sticks above the surface of the opening. The glass opens and closes into that opening the same as the factory molded flange. These truly do only requre they cut a hole, reshape your headliner some, wire in a switch, route some drain tubes, and you're on your way.

Just for reference, I have a 2006 Toyota 4Runner that I actually had a Sol-Aire series aftermarket sunroof install in about six months ago, so I've dealt with BOTH types of sunroof recently. And for the time spent, I'd go aftermarket. If you lived near here though and had a donor car setting aroundwith a sunroof like how I started my project, I'd probably help you go the hard route just cause it's much cheaper, just much, much more labor intesive.

Check out my update thread, there's tons of pics of my sunroof project in there.....

[fogged]

Thanx. I think as a side project ill be looking for the donor car. I have 17yrs metal fab under my belt. I think this is something I just might be able to do. I know its not going to be easy to do, so I might ask alot of ?s. Plus It will be a good first job for my new Miller Pro 300 that I just bought for my shop.

[RamThis]

If'n you're willing to tackle it, I'll help you as much as I can. You can see from the pics where I cut and grafted the substructure pretty well.

Next spring, come hell or high water, I'm getting my welder too. I'm looking at the Miller 252. More welder than I'd usually need, but I like to overbuy because you never know when it's going to come in handy for an unexpected project. It's more than enough welder to do frame modifications too, or weld up thick angle iron and tubing, so hoping it serves me well. Right now any welding I have to do, has to be done at a friends house. In fact, just got back a while ago from there after welding up a handle relocator for my Ram's tailgate handle. Also redid a bit on the roll pan. Sucks having to borrow a welder all the time lol.