964russ

No, they dont make them for 64.
Offered fibreglass roof skin.

Dont think its wort it.
A good bodyshop can graft steel in.

964russ

Ive found a man who can sort it.
Think ill b gettin him to do roof.

Then need a liner, mayb swede.

NineMeister

Russ, you're only in Cheshire, if you need that steel panel welding in we can easily do that for you. Sure, it's not the purist way of doing things and it would be better to fit a new roof skin (we can do that as well!) but if the intent is to fit the headlining to the underside you would not know the difference from the outside.

robt964

Ok, so here's what happened. Progress so far...
Lifting out the sunroof panel and all the mech was pretty straight forward without any drama. Next up was cutting out the main big box section that the panel retracts into. This too went well but I took my time over it, making sure I knew exactly where I was every millimeter of the way. The most complicated part was triming the metal back around the edge of the aperture. Lots of concentration here as I certainly didn't want the cutter to snag/pull/run-away!

Rather than cut all the metal back to the roof panel I left about 12mm all round. This I then carefull reprofiled to form a flanged lip onto which the original sunroof panel can be seated, a few spots welded to hold it firmly in place and ultimately bonded in place.

The reformed metal edge..


Its still a bit 'rough round the edges' as this is work in progress and the lip will require a bit more tweeking to be perfect all the way round.



The panel dropped back in onto its new seat.


Not looking too bad I hope? Lots more head room available now :-)


...and a pile of scrap metal to finish

PeterS911

How much extra headroom have you actually achieved? Any idea?

robt964

Roughly 1.5 inches I recon...

HiWind

nice going - whats that pile of cutouts/discards weigh? is the sometimes mentioned 30kg right?

Captain Ahab Jr.

good work

what about cutting out the sunroof inner panel, looks like dead weight to me

robt964

The sunroof panel itself weights 5.1kg and the waste material 7.6kg (excluding the thin metal internal retracting cover) so together they weigh roughly close to 30lbs but not kilos.

Removing the sunroof panel inner skin is do-able but is much more complicated than it looks. Along some of the edges the outer skin is folded over the inner and spot welded. I know my limits and not sure I'd be able to separate the two with zero damage/distortion to the outer skin - so its going to stay.

John McM

Is this realistically a DIY effort, assuming you are sealing the original panel in the opening?

robt964

I intend on using a couple of stitch welds to locate the panel, then something like sikaflex to seal/bond around the edges upto 2 or 3mm short of being flush with the roof line. I can then sink back in the external felt seal surround so that it appears *exactly* as normal. The interior will receive a new headlining.

This is a relatively low risk approach. If during the process it looks like its just not going to work out right then there is nothing lost. Drop the idea, buy the Fenn lane panel and hand it to a pro. I've done most of the prep-work for him :-)

freedman

Fantasic job, not seen it done like that before, seems to be a very cost effective way to increase the height and lose most of the weight

How long did it actually take you?

robt964

Took about 3-4 hours of cutting, but I was deliberately taking my time.

HiWind

30lbs - got it thanks. Good luck with the completion!

kos11-12

Well done, thanks for sharing,