Best Sunroof Ever.

[Kruzen]

Since Ive owned my E30 the sunroof has been a thorne in my side. Most of the car has actually as Ive broght this thing back from the dead, but the roof would move under free way drag, and when the moon was just right, piss on people during rainstorms. I kicked aorund the idea of a CF plug or perhaps welding in a plug. Both were shot down be it the $ factor or that time put in (to properly weld without warping) couldnt be accomplished during a weekend home.Finally having a spare weekend I grabbed some 20 gauge sheet of 24x36" aluminum from Lowe's, 1/8" aluminum rivets, GE silicon aluminum sealant and the trusty Dremel and went to town.


Yummy!


Driver side with the roof off. You can see from the above pics all the mounting points had rotted away. The only thing holding the roof to the car was 4 of the 6 clips for the shade :barf:


Cleaned up


Lining plug up, just used the old roof to contour the edges. (didnt need to take off anything length) Rivets 2" apart except on the corners.


No pics of the caulking steps, just layed it down and dropped the plug on it after drilling the rivet holes and testing each one.

It makes an nice clunk noise when the doors are closed or the windows are down above 40mph, due to pressure fluctuating, ill arch a thick piece of aluminum and rivet it to the body long ways like a spine below it to keep this from continuing. At any speed with the windows up its as quiet as a mouse. I'm going to get around to painting it this week via this method http://www.rickwrench.com/50dollarpaint.html :D

Thanks to everyone here and at E30tech for the input as usual and to the grassroots fellas and their specE30 http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/new...-spec-e30-bmw/

BONUS Video of my emissions neglecting exhaust :hurr:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8MzbErnhUL4

[backtrail69]

Yea, i saw that... Ill take my functioning sunroof..

[325Projectz]

[nando]

haha, with all the shit in that guy's sunroof area, no wonder it leaked. a little bit of cleaning goes a long way..

oh well, the car is a rust bucket anyway.. that sunroof area looks like the one in my parts car.

oh yeah, I hope that guy knows that sillcone causes steel to rust.. not like it matters on that car :p

[Kruzen]

Yea, i saw that... Ill take my functioning sunroof..

Just wonderin, where'd you spot it at, I caught it in AI over @ SA

[DarkWing6]

Thanks to everyone here and at E30tech for the input

:giggle:

[Kruzen]

:giggle:

lmao, didn't catch that before.

[Axxe]

What do you think they do on real e30 race cars? I've seen 3-4 at the track, and they all have aluminum welded sunroofs.

[nando]

What do you think they do on real e30 race cars? I've seen 3-4 at the track, and they all have aluminum welded sunroofs.

sure, but this thing isn't a race car. it's a stripped down parts-car beater that's driven on the street.

[Axxe]

sure, but this thing isn't a race car. it's a stripped down parts-car beater that's driven on the street.

I know that, and it's ghetto licious, however it's standard practice in the race scene, and the hardcore fuh raze rust boxes.

That is still better than a leaking roof IMHO, especially on a beater.