I cant find a DIY for shaving a roof. Anyone have experience with this?

I think I'm gonna take off the roof trim and clips and everything, weld in some strips of metal, and bondo it up.

do you think this is a bad or good idea

car: EH9 93 ex sedan w/ sunroof (already cleared drains and confirmed it isn't leaking from the sunroof anymore)

 

Bad, IMO. Something about body flex, and stressing the welds, and coming apart? Or maybe the Bondo cracks. Or, maybe it will make the car more solid. Who the **** knows. Do what you want.

 

All I want is for the pieces of **** to stop leaking. Now the passenger side is leaking. And after putting two feet of Solar Seal silicone on the driver side, its leaking again too.

 

Through your sunroof. Blocked/clogged drain hoses.That would be my first suspect in any "roof-leak" issue. Or else, how is your rust situation? That would be #2.

 

That was my thought too, my bro wanted to help me take the headliner out since I had never done it before (still broke it anyway). Then I blew em all clean.

IV had the headliner out since the first week iv had the car, and its leaking from the top of the pillar where the inner layer of the roof is attached to the pillar. I'll try to post a pic

 

 

Man, I can't figure out where that is! Too zoomed in to see context.

 

Thats the top-right corner of the windshield and the passenger side pillar

 

 

OK. You done the 'hose test'? Run the hose on the sunroof (only) to see if there's water that drips.

 

Yeah the was the absolute first thing I did to try and locate the leak. Then I cleared em, the rear pair had nearly a foot of dirt lodged in em. The fronts were clean tho, guess the car sat on a hill with the *** end down hill.

then when I noticed it was leaking again I took the side molding off the windshield to see it better, and slowly poured a container of water into the roof molding. I looked inside after one bottle worth and it was dripping from that same place pictured. except it was the driver side which has a much worse leak.

 

I should probably also note that it seems like the clips are broken, the roof molding isn't firmly attached it wobbles a little bit. Its also not sitting in the same position as other civics I have compared it to. Plus there were little chunks of decaying pine needles lodged between the molding and the metal roof..

the driver side is undoubtedly beyond its usefulness. I have considered buying brand new ones, but if I can shave em it'l look alot nicer and it'l be cheaper. The car needs paint anyway, the rear wheel well is gonna be black as soon as I get around to putting the patch panel in.

 

well if your sure its in the groves then hit it up with a wire wheel really good, mix up the bondo and just stuff it all in the grove let it overflow so to speak
then take a something flat and run it from front to back over the grove

if you see any bubbles or dips just stuff it again and scrape it front to back.

let sit 2-4 hours then prime and paint.

ive seen/done alot of civics shaved just about everything possible

as long as your not having someone stand on your roof like a dummy youll be just dandy.


ps, if you have any other rust spots or hail dents nows the time to wire wheel them and fill them too!

 

thanks for the advice. I wasn't worried about the car flexing and it cracking maybe I should be but meh I'm not. I'm more worried about the old piece of **** trying to raddle around some more or collapsing under the bondo and it cracking that way so I'm probably gonna pull the bitch out and and weld a piece of metal in.

 

(mostly I wanna beat up this crappy ugly pain in my *** molding)

 

unless your running drift or auto-x you wont see any flex ever... only in hard turns and high speeds.

 

I'm gonna guess it's a rust problem, if it's not a sunroof issue. Bondo won't help in this case. Take the windshield off and get in there with a welder to do it right.

 

I like hard turns at high speeds. And my buddy is trying to get me to do some slow-and-lots-of-turns track events.

@deschlong
what are you referring to exactly? IV considered the windshield as a possibility for the leak but when I hose tested it wasn't leaking from there. IV gotta replace it anyway, its cracked.

where do you think the rust is tho that could be causing this? The water drains out of the molding and then out of that little slot where the inner roof is attached (correction, it doesn't look welded) to the front pillars. It was actually leaking all the way down into the wires that go to the trunk and also the floor mat.

 

 

Is this a thing where I'm not gonna understand what hes talking about until I get the windshield off?

I tried really hard to see in between the inside and outside layers of sheet metal that make the roof. From what I can barely see, the inside of the roof molding channel does have rust on it. I'm gonna drill a 1 inch hole next to where the water is leaking into the car so I could have some idea of where the water is coming in from.

 

looks more like thats coming from the top edge of your windshield man. atleast thats what i can see from the rust trail
leave it all off and take a ride on the interstate(70mph) and put your hand up there see if you feel any wind coming thru

 

that's a good idea I didn't think of that. Thinking about it now, there is a lot of wind noise

 

well there you go... what happened, whoever replaced that windshield last didnt properly seal it which over time is now a rusted out lip.

temp fix, lift up outer molding clean it out, over fill with silicone now hold down the molding or sit something on top of it, wipe off any excess overflow after a little bit it should be dry.


depending on how bad the damage is, which can only be told by removing the windshield, your looking at needing a welder friend and a glass friend. either theres enough metal left to weld to and recreate the lip, or you'll have to just replace the whole roof.

 

I hope its not so bad that I'll need to get rid of the roof.

am I gonna be able to find a roof in stock anywhere? I looked on majestic and it says discontinued

 

Junkyard for a replacement roof, but you don't want to do that, that's annoying *1,000,000. Chances are the roof is fixable and for sure this is an annoying problem, but less so that a whole roof replacement. It will cause some down-time though on your car. Cross your fingers that it's leaking because of a bad windshield seal and not a giant rust hole. Maybe you will just need to clean up some surface rust and then Bob's Your Uncle - you're done. Wishful thinking maybe ....