How easy would it be to replace the roof?

[turbophein]

my roof looks like kids were dancing on it. its annoying already! i have a parts vr4 car sitting in my garage with a mint roof with a bonus because its a sunroof car, mine isn't. i was wondering how much work this would be to split the seam and reweld it together?

i have everything needed, the sunroof harness, sunroof, headliner, and roof, etc

 

[prove_it]

If your good with body work and a tape measure, it shouldn't be too hard.

 

Cut.
Weld.
Grind.
Fill.
Paint.

Sounds like on hell of a project unless you are a badass fabricator. Just getting the new hood to sit still while you were attaching it seems like it would be very difficult.

 

[gtluke]

I heard it's not that bad, since we have these filler panels it's just a matter of grinding the spot welds out, and replacing and rewelding. Nobody has done a how-to yet and I think it involves popping out the front and back glass.

 

Of course if you could find an old hot rodder - a 2" chopped top would look pretty cool!

 

^If I saw a 2 in chopped top GVR4 I'd laugh my ass off at the fact somebody did that and got custom made just to make their car look worse.

 

[mooserage]

There is a local guy who did this for his rally car a while back. He swapped roof skins from a sunroof to a non-sunroof. I asked him about it and he said basically the same thing as Luke. Just drill out the spot welds, remove, replace and re-weld. And of course measure twice, cut once really applies with something like this...
-shamus

 

[WesS]

I was actually discussing this with another member (Gaylant-Joe) today. We had previously done it to a roll over tundra truck. Looks like it would not be too difficult, just time consuming. Would also be a good time to replace cracked windshields and all the molding. Remove trim. drill spot welds. Clean/Pull/replace weld back in.

 

[Ian M]

A friend of mine did it. Swapped from sunroof to non-sunroof. It's pretty basic metal work to anyone who's done collision or restoration type work.

Removing the windshield and back glass is the biggest PITA,after that it's straight forward. Like has already been mentioned,dig out the seam sealer,drill out the welds under the roof trim,remove the center panel,install the donor roof panel,and plug weld it on through the holes left by removing it from the donor car's roof,re-seam seal.

There isn't any exposed welds or filler to deal with,it's all under the trim on the roof.

 

[misterfixit]

Quoting turbophein:
my roof looks like kids were dancing on it. its annoying already! i have a parts vr4 car sitting in my garage with a mint roof with a bonus because its a sunroof car, mine isn't. i was wondering how much work this would be to split the seam and reweld it together?

i have everything needed, the sunroof harness, sunroof, headliner, and roof, etc



just need front and rear windshields out. the rest of the welds are exposed when you pull the rain channel mouldings. just drill all the spots and lift the skin. do you want the body manual sections?

the rest is bolt on

rich

 

[1badgvr4]

How easy would it be to wire up the sunroof stuff to a non sunroof car? I hope its easy cause i hate wiring

 

[turbophein]

should be plug and play with the right sunroof harness.

 

[turbophein]

what is the best way to remove a window, i tried on my jeep a couple years ago with some piano wire and some sticks for grip but it didn't work. i just kicked out the windshield fixed what i needed, and had the insurance replace the glass.

 

[DR1665]

I've been researching this recently. There are special drill bits for drilling out the spot welds which do not result in giant holes all over the place. It makes it easier for welding the panel back into place when you're done. At the same time, though, I think I'm just going to use some kind of adhesive like is used to join a number of panels elsewhere on the car. I don't think it would take too much heat, unevenly applied, to result in oil-canning in the roof panel. It would annoy the hell out of me to have the roof skin wobbling in/out at speed.

I'm still a few months out on this project, though. One thing at a time.

 

[strokin4dr]

I will be doing this soon. I'll make sure to take lots of pics for you guys. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[turbophein]

awesome can't wait