Restoring a sunroof panel.
Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2017 7:55 pm
This is for fellow board member Not_Anumber.
The sunroof on his 2.8 wasn't sitting right and was scratching on the back left corner. I offered my experience with these major pains in the arse as i have taken my own sunroof out many many times so i have the whole procedure pretty much memorised by this stage and thought i could be of assistance and fix his issue as well as repair the scratched paint on the panel itself.
Well after a whole days worth of fiddling, adjusting, and taking the whole thing in and out at least 8 times we finally gave up and decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
At least im not qualified enough to fix the underlying problem that is causing the sunroof to scratch (rust on the inside of the roof skin of the car itself) but we decided to repair the panel and once its put back he just wont use it to avoid scratching it again (he can still use the pop up option at least).
I started sanding down the panel with a dual action sander and discovered around 5 or 6 layers of paint underneath! This had to have added at least 3 or 4 mil of material to the panel, no wonder it was scratching! It might not sound like a lot but trust me these things work to within tiny tolerances so every little bit counts.
As you can see here theres multiple layers of previous "work". I spotted some lacquer red, some silver, two or three layers of primer as well as the top coat and its layer of primer. We also found some filler, the worst possible thing you can put on a panel like this.
We also found a couple of mm's worth of filler in this corner, which was hiding a nasty surprise, rust!
So what was originally supposed to be a simple job has now turned into something more time consuming, as we have to grind out that rust, add in some new metal, grind that down, hammer out the dent for a final layer of very very thin filler to smooth it all out.
Thats all for now, will update as soon as i have more to show.
Im hoping to have this painted before the weekend however my own Capri has broken down now so im unable to work on this until it is fixed as i cant get to and from the workshop now without hitching a ride.
And so life continues....
The sunroof on his 2.8 wasn't sitting right and was scratching on the back left corner. I offered my experience with these major pains in the arse as i have taken my own sunroof out many many times so i have the whole procedure pretty much memorised by this stage and thought i could be of assistance and fix his issue as well as repair the scratched paint on the panel itself.
Well after a whole days worth of fiddling, adjusting, and taking the whole thing in and out at least 8 times we finally gave up and decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
At least im not qualified enough to fix the underlying problem that is causing the sunroof to scratch (rust on the inside of the roof skin of the car itself) but we decided to repair the panel and once its put back he just wont use it to avoid scratching it again (he can still use the pop up option at least).
I started sanding down the panel with a dual action sander and discovered around 5 or 6 layers of paint underneath! This had to have added at least 3 or 4 mil of material to the panel, no wonder it was scratching! It might not sound like a lot but trust me these things work to within tiny tolerances so every little bit counts.
As you can see here theres multiple layers of previous "work". I spotted some lacquer red, some silver, two or three layers of primer as well as the top coat and its layer of primer. We also found some filler, the worst possible thing you can put on a panel like this.
We also found a couple of mm's worth of filler in this corner, which was hiding a nasty surprise, rust!
So what was originally supposed to be a simple job has now turned into something more time consuming, as we have to grind out that rust, add in some new metal, grind that down, hammer out the dent for a final layer of very very thin filler to smooth it all out.
Thats all for now, will update as soon as i have more to show.
Im hoping to have this painted before the weekend however my own Capri has broken down now so im unable to work on this until it is fixed as i cant get to and from the workshop now without hitching a ride.
And so life continues....