Hi guys!
i recently managed to upload photos from my old phone onto photo boucket so i thought i would share a few photos of the sunroof delete i did last spring.
the reason i did the delete was because the old cassette was an absolute state, and i also had to remove it anyway to fix rust that had crept onto the roof panel from the rusty cassette. i was also quite keen on the idea of removing future potential rust/leak sources
the following pictures are by no means concise, i only took a few as we went but im sure you will get the gist of the job
first, a couple of pics of the roof repair after the removal of the cassette
once the roof was repaired we then moved on to filling the hole in the roof. my first step was to remove the 'interior' panel of the secondhand sunroof panel i bought. once this was done, i removed all the paint around the edges of the panel.
the little 'segments' of paint i removed were for small sections of angle plate we tacked onto the sunroof to aid in mounting the new panel
once mounting brackets were tacked on, we then tacked a thick piece of TIG wire all the way around the edge of the replacement panel (otherwise there would be a large gap all the way round 5mm ish each side), keeping the same distance from surface, to provide a little depth for final welding.
once this was done we lowered the replacement roof panel into place. once in, the panel was welded as panels are, slowly and big spaces between tack group, to reduce heat and possible distortion of bodywork.
next, all of the paintwork was removed from the roof and 50mm wide 4mm thick strengthening strips were welded on the inside of the roof where cassette fitted at the rear to strengthen the roof as my man robbo wasnt happy with the flex of the roof panel once the sunroof cassette had been removed. in the centre of each strip a large splodge of top grade body sealer was smeared on to ensure the roof never separated from strengthening strips. ( i believe we fitted 3 strips backwards from sunroof. (unfortunately no pics of strips)
once the strips were in and the sealer had set, the roof panel was smoothed with body filler in thin stages and then rubbed down to make it look like there had never been a sunroof in the first place once painted.
once the car was back from paint i fitted a non sunroof headlining and modified my sunvisor holder trim to look like it was from a non sunroof car. just trimmed the edge that would have gone up to meet the sunroof interior cover and then glued the vinyl back over the edge i had trimmed.
it seems to rain every day here at the moment, as soon as its dry and the suns out i will get a tidy picture of the sunroof that never was.
credit goes to my friend Robbo 'turkish' Le page. he is a phenomenal panel beater, the quality of his work is second to none. although i did a lot of the monkey work - simple filling jobs, prep for paint, cutting out rust, cutting replacement steel for him to weld in and surface rust removal/treatment - he did all of the technical work, panel beating and welding while i cheered him on from the sidelines i could not have done the job without him.
aside from the sunroof there were a lot more little bits and bobs that needed sorting, tiny bits of rust all over the place. the odd thing is, the underneath of the car is immaculate not a single bit of rust bar a little surface rust behind the bottom of drivers side arch. just a little write up on some of the work on my pride and joy.
P.S i have taken some time off in february to get engine out and get the bay prepped and painted and for turkish to weld in a new rad carrier panel and new from valance
car as is stands now-----
Topic: E30 318is sunroof delete (Read 7375 times)