h22congee!

so I finally decided to muster enough ***** to attempt to remove my sunroof and identify that annoying rattling noise I'm getting. this rattle occurs with the sunroof partially or fully opened.

Removal instructions
1) remove the rubber/vinyl liner (surrounding the opening)- you can do this by just grabbing a section and start gently yanking it off. it's like a seal.

2) remove sunroof liner (grey-ish vinyl board) - I found this to be the most tricky as I didn't wanna scratch/tear/crease the unit.

I. you need to slide the sunroof back a little and line up the philip screws with the indent provisions in the housing.
remove 2 philips screws

ii. next u'll need to gently pop off the liner. it's held by 5 plastic clips. remove the front 2 clips ( u can do this with a flat-head screw driver), gently pop off the front.
u'll need to jam your hand into the liner to pop the remain 3 clips out. this is the scary part. be gentle. long arms need apply.
then head to the back of the sunroof and gently push down on the liner to free it from the back metal bar-clip. do the same to the other side of the liner and slide it free.
slide the liner out via the roof and out the rear of the car.

3) remove sunroof panel.
I. close the sunroof.
ii. locate the 8 bolts ( 4 contact points - 2 bolts per contact points). remove bolts

once the 8 bolts are removed, u can pop the roof. if you're byyerself, u can slide the roof back a little bit, then remove the roof from the outside of the car.

MYSTERIOUS RATTLE SOLVED:

the sunroof is connected to the 2 mechanical arms on the rail. the roof is connected to the arms via 4 contact points. when I removed my sunroof, I noticed each contact points had these gold-color metal plates that is used like a washer/gasket to be sandwiched between the sunroof and arm...
well, I noticed that 3 contact points had 2 plates each on them, but one of the contact points only had 1 plate! wtf.
I wonder if it was only suppose to come with one plate each... and some honda-tech or mechanic put in one more each on the other 3 points.
OR
it probably came with two plates per contact point, but a honda-tech or mechanic had forgotten to put the 2nd plate one of the contact points.

the rattling was coming from the passenger front of the sunroof, and that was the area of the missing plate.

so I just proceeded to remove the extra plate from the 3 arms. so essentially, I only have one plate per contact point now.

installation of the sunroof is just the reversal of the remove instructions.
u can save yourself some hassle by finding a 2nd person to help u align the sunroof back onto the arms. make sure the metal plates don't mis-align or fall out when your remounting the sunroof.

note: I also lube the rails and the plastic guides and cleaned all surrounding areas -since your there already.

tighten all bolts.
viola,
no rattles.
just sweet uninterrupted BASS.

peace.
-r]


[Modified by h22congee!, 6:04 PM 9/19/2002]

96LudeSiVTEC

Thanks. Just printed this off. I'll give this a try this weekend.