How I fixed my sunroof...

[TB2]

Well, I guess it's not much of a how-to, because it's a rather simple task to dissamble the sunroof, but I'll post the images I made anyway.

Important: If you want to remove the sunroof yourself for whatever reason, you do NOT have to remove all the pillar trims and the roof panel as I did. Just after I finished refitting the roof panel, I finally understood, why the rails were made out of several weird parts and screws.

It is possible to simply remove the shortest part of the rail housing and then lift the pane out of the roof. But I didn't notice that, so I followed the Citroen BX DIY guide for removing the roof panel (which was originally written to clean clogged tubes).

I had to remove all the A-, B- and C-pillar trims, which was a bit tricky because of those stupid plastic rivets and I accidentally broke one of the A-pillar trims because they were attached with some silicone-like rubber. I'm sure that someone had already done this before because I found a cut-off antenna cable up there and that silicone didn't belong there eighter. I also had to remove the overhead bracket and the grab handles and finally I was able to remove the roof panel which was still being held by a metal retainer at the back and a plastic retainer at the front. That metal retainer had to be bent by force and a small bit of plastic at the front broke off.



All told, it was a pain in the * and doing this should be avoided at all costs. In the end, it looked something like this



The cables were still attached, so I removed them, too and took the whole thing indoors.



The reason why the sunroof wouldn't open was that one of the slides was broken in three pieces right where it should hold the pane. Of course it's very hard to find a spare part for that, so I had to glue it together somehow. So I took some super glue...



and filled it up with hot glue:



Well it's not inspiring confidence, and I preyed that it would work like this, and in the end it did, so I was lucky this time. This is, how the important side now looks like:



This is one of the hooks. The motor at the front moves to spiral wires contrariwise so that the slides go back and forth.



So I refitted the pane on the roof panel and greased it throughly because it was squeaking really loud. By the way, that small wheel on the right is supposed to go under the rail and not where it's right on this picture. It's a bit tricky...



and put it all toghether in the car.

Yeah, it was a pain, but at least the sunroof is now fixed. The guy I bought the car off had sealed the roof with silicone but still the footwells were soaked in water. As I removed the roof panel completely, I also had to reattach the four tubes and this gave me the chance to clean them, too.

Well. I hope I was able to entertain you for a minute or two, there

[MULLEY]

Very well done, if i'd tried it, i would guarantee i would have bust something else.....

[Brian King]

My problem with my sunroof is not that it won't work - everything slides around perfectly - but that I can't seem to solve the rain leaking out of the headlining next to the front doors. I've cleaned out all 4 drain tubes and poured water to check it is going down the said tubes, but it makes no difference. Would taking out the entire thing be the only answer?

[mnde]

Is there something perhaps in one of the water channels that is causing this? Do you park your car on a slope (front to rear or sideways).. I'm wondering whether there is a condition where the drain tubes are all clear, but something in the water channel - or corrosion - is still causing the water to flow over the sides...

Mark.

[Brian King]

Thanks for the help. When the water was cascading in I opened the roof and the channels were wet obviously but not full of water. It seems there are two parallel channels each side of the sunroof, and on the far side on each side of the sunroof the bodywork has 3 half moon holes cut out. Obviously the water isn't even meant to get anywhere near there. When I pour water into the channels it obediently goes down both front tubes and onto the ground.

[Brian King]

just had a thought. On the roof of the car there are two long plastic strips on each side. They seem to be fixed to the roof but not part of it. Could rain be getting in there? I have no idea how they are fixed. Could be mastic, like the body kits.

[TB2]

I have the same problem, water is still getting inside the car even though I removed the whole roof panel and even removed and reattached the rear drain pipes. It might be that I didn't stick them in place properly.

I will do some testing and I suggest you could do the same. Removing the B-pillar, maybe even the A- and C-pilla trims, too, and then parking the car on a slope in at least 4, better 8 different angles and each time pouring water into the roof, to see where it drains properly, and where it runs down the pillars.

I for once had the feeling that if I park the car with the nose pointing down, I don't have water in the foot wells. But I'll need to check again.

By the way, the fixing I did held quite well but after, say, 40 times of closing and opening it broke again. I'll need to find a replacement.

[demag]

Have you checked your roof aerial fixings?! This is a classic for mysterious water leaks on Xm's! Make sure you have a good seal under the base plate.

[TB2]

As I had found the bit that was broken on my sunroof on the scrap yard yesterday, I went on to fixing it right away. So now here is...

"How I properly fixed my sunroof..."

The sunroof is extremely easy to get out. You don't have to remove all the panels and the whole roof, but only (with the sunroof opened) these three screws on every side so that those two plates come off:



I also removed the three screws at the front:



Then, it's plain simple. I just had to close the sunroof and push it upwards, then open it a bit to get the front rail piece out...



So here's the broken bit and the new one:



All this took me 10 minutes. But putting it back in was still very painful and took me an hour of fiddling. It wouldn't open anymore and I had to stick those two metal plates in while the sunroof was in the closed/tilted position, so there was no room at all to put the screws in. Haven't been swearing that much for a while...

At least the sunroof's definetly fixed now!

By the way, I tried parking the car in different positions on a slope and pouring water down the sunroof. Seems like all the drain pipes are okay but I noticed water coming out at the front bottom corner of the front door frames. If I don't do something, this car will be killed by rust in the end. At least it's garaged when I don't use it...