Sunroof is now a moonroof

[toybox]

After 14 years of enjoying my sunroof, and hearing on here of others problems, it got stuck open. I took everything down from the side panels up to the headliner then took out the roof. I cleaned it for hours and re-lubed everything. I was able to then manually pull it back into the closed position. I put everything back together and gave it a short test. It made a grinding sound again and I stopped it, put it back in the closed position, and unplugged it.

I think my cables are messed up or binding, they move but the one side seems to not move that freely. I think the cable kit is fairly expensive and I don't feel like screwing with it anymore even though I did really like using it.

One bonus, I figured out where the rattle was coming from when I had the entire thing out and now the rattle is gone at least. The rattle came from a plastic piece that holds the rod about half way back. I'm not sure you could see it if you don't have the sunroof completely down.

I now have a moonroof only.

 

[svana]

Your splines are likely seized in the metal tubes. I fixed mine by cutting them open and replacing them with the soft copper pipe you use for refrigerator water lines at HD. I explained it more in detail on one of these threads if you're actually interested in regaining use of your roof. I used (still do) mine enough to justify the effort.

 

[toybox]

Your splines are likely seized in the metal tubes. I fixed mine by cutting them open and replacing them with the soft copper pipe you use for refrigerator water lines at HD. I explained it more in detail on one of these threads if you're actually interested in regaining use of your roof. I used (still do) mine enough to justify the effort.

So the splines were just seized and not worn? I might do that if it's just taking it apart then cleaning and re-lubing. It was a royal pain to take down the headliner though, does it all need to come out to access the tubes and cables?

 

[Wheresmikeys]

Following this.

 

[svana]

So the splines were just seized and not worn? I might do that if it's just taking it apart then cleaning and re-lubing. It was a royal pain to take down the headliner though, does it all need to come out to access the tubes and cables?

The tubes had rusted from the inside, but the splines were fine for the most part. Some of the plastic that coats the splines had broken down over time, but still usable. I used a dremel with a cutting wheel to cut open the pipe (be careful you don't cut the spline) then peeled it off. I didn't have any leaking issues, the drain pipes were still clear - it was just the result of a 13 year old truck...Fabbing up the new pipe from copper was relatively speaking a piece of cake. Just cut it to length, match the curve then flare the mouth in/out as needed (it's a bit wider than the oem tube, so you have to narrow the neck down a bit to get it to fit into the channel). Once I had the tubes fabbed up I just threw some grease on the spline and slid them into place. Worked just like new. Probably been about 3 years now since I've done it and it's still working fine. Probably wouldn't hurt to regrease them and check everything out but I'm in no rush and there's plenty more pressing things to get to on the truck.

I took the whole headliner out in order to take the whole sunroof track system out (at the time I was still trying to diagnose the problem). You could maybe try and just pull them out without getting everything down but I wouldn't recommend it.