Has anyone attempted putting a 92-96 Prelude Sunroof into a 94-97 Accord?
I have been thinking about doing this since I got the car 3-4 years ago. I honestly don't care much for the moon roof. I never have the slider open with the window closed, there is just too much sun here in Cali. Its either opened completely or closed. Usually closed. The tilted sun-roof is one of the things I always liked about my preludes.


I obviously don't think this will be a direct fit, I was thinking about picking up a full assembly from the pick your part eventually and seeing what it would take, I don't think any additional wiring would be required since they are both open/close switches.


The Prelude roof does look to be bigger, some cutting may be required to fit it. I was thinking that i would trim the assembly and roof to fit but now I'm thinking that maybe cutting the accord roof and having a bigger sunroof would be preferable. I would hope the whole assembly would be $50-100. Any thoughts?


Just a note, my paint is still a work in progress so I don't care much about that at the moment, using the Sunroof and not the moonroof means no glass to cut. I currently have no headliner so that's something I will need to deal with in the future anyway. Seems like a win/win assuming I get around to it.

 

I pulled the trigger and ordered the prelude sunroof and assembly. It ended up costing me $150, its been too hot and I have been too lazy to go to pick your part again looking.The prelude sunroof is quite a bit larger. I assumed it would be. I went ahead and removed the sunroof from the assembly and did a test fit of the assembly. The assembly does roughly fit in the Accord. I ended up drilling out the spot welds on the prelude side mounts and removed them. The front mounts are identical to the accord. The forward side mounting holes are very close to the Prelude roof assembly but I should be able to build a mount to work. The rear was a little more work, the mounts on the roof come into contact with the assembly so I ended up notching the assembly sides and then bending them outward and using them for the rear mounts. It worked surprising well. The prelude sunroof assembly is now mounted securely and the wiring has the same connector so no issue there.

I started to take some pictures but my phone died, pictures to come.

There is a lip on the accord roof that comes into contact with the roof mechanism so I may need to bend it out a bit to work, also the fit is a little tricky in the front as well. At this point I have not modified the accord in any way but that may be needed to complete the process. I'm not sure if the rear of the mechanism will come into contact or not. It looked like it was going to work on one side but not the other, things may have just been binding up a bit on the sides.

If I don't have to modify the opening in any way I way use the Accord glass roof. The accord and prelude roof mount the same way so it wont be too much work to mount either to the assembly. Most likely I will need to drill some new holes to line everything up but that's not a huge deal.
I was going to go ahead and mount the accord roof back on but the rear of the glass has some additional material that needs to be removed first. The spot welds are under the glass so I think I'm going to get a spot weld cutter tool before I try to remove the welds. Once I cut those there is no going back, ill have to pick up new glass. I'm sure it isn't more than $30$.

 

Here are the Pics. I didnt get a picture but the accord moon roof does sit perfectly flush with the Prelude assembly. I may need to trim the rear seal a bit since it was not built to lift in the rear.
Here are the spot Welds i drilled out to remove the prelude mounts. I should have waited and ordered the spot weld tool first but i was impatient.

Here is the prelude assembly mounted in the accord

used the spot weld bit and removed this panel from the accord moon roof.

Close up of the spot weld cut.

After i removed the panel from the moonroof

The accord roof does not line up well with the prelude bracket. It does sit perfectly with the roof just not the brackets. This is how far back it wants to sit.

This is how far to the side it wants to fit. I think i need to pick up some strips of steel and make a simple adapter to match the 2 up. There is room for adjustment once i add the rubber gaskets back in to the assembly, i may need to space things out anyway.

This is the notch i cut for the rear mount. It made room to clear the stock mount location and as a plus it make a nice tab to use as the rear mount. Its not the cleanest cut but i just used a small hacksaw to cut it.

The prelude assembly comes into very slight contact with the side . I think there is room to trim off the assembly or maybe i can just bend the lip out slightly.

Here is my biggest concern. The rear has to come up and clear the accord roof. If i cannot get this to clear i will need to cut this a bit then modify the prelude roof to fit. I would prefer to not have a moon roof anyway but trimming that roof could end up being an issue.

 

I spent some time working on this. First i placed the roof in position then created an outline of the rails and work to create some adapters. It took me quite a bit of time to make the first one, find out things didn't quite line up then modify to fit. Then i duplicated it and thought i was good to go. I went to mount everything back up and found out that the sunroof guide rails were out of place and had to fiddle with it to get them back in and moving freely, after i did that i found my adapters were not even close to correct and had to drill the rails directly. After a few days of dicing the stock rails i was able to get the roof to mount to the rails and now it does move. The issue i have right now is that the roof is interfering with the rails and when i attempt to close the roof its a bit too far back. I think my best plan of action would be to move the whole assembly forward about 2 inches. Its sucks that i will have to modify that perfectly matching front mount point but i think it will help resolve my issue with interference and help the roof to sit a little easier.

Not as dramatic is on the Prelude since the accord roof is bigger and the sunroof is smaller but still a tilt roof.

Don't mind the roof paint, that's on my list after i get the sunroof situation sorted

Looks cool from the rear, i think it will look better if i can get some additional clearance.

Just wanted to throw in a pic of my red gauges.

Here is where the current fitment issues are, very close just slightly off. The rear seal is a bit bulky, maybe i can do something to trim that down.

 

Well, I finally got back to this for a bit. I ended up drilling new holes in the front to move up the Prelude assembly. I also ended up moving away from the rear tabs and just drilling a hole from the bottom and slightly bending the mount. everything lines up well now and the sunroof sits pretty nicely.

Also with the way I ended up drilling out the welds and not waiting for the tool I damaged the rail a bit, I had to break it down completely and smooth out the rough edges from the drill holes. Well I know better for the future. I also trimmed the seal at the back of the accord glass so that it would move into position properly, it was never designed to tilt so the seals were binding.

Problem... The slider still does not clear the roof well. I can move it back about 3 inches but then it bottoms out, it tilts perfectly at least. I think the next step is to trim the Assembly rim down quite a bit to move the roof up. I'm not sure how well it will line up with the roofline afterwards, its a little low at the moment so I have a bit of room to play with. I'm still waiting to finish the sunroof/moonroof project before I finish the paint. I have been working on another project civic so this has been on the backburner for a bit. I still need to work on the tune as well since its still running super rich.

 

I was at pick your part today and I saw someone had removed another prelude roof assembly so I grabbed the rails as spares and was going to grab the assembly as well since I had drilled the crap out of my first one. As I was walking around I noticed an Acura (CL?) with a tilt sunroof. I looked at the roof a bit and it appeared to be the same size as the accord. I went ahead and pulled the assembly and at first glance it appeared to line up perfectly with the mounts in the accord. I grabbed it and figured I would give it a shot before spending the time to trim the prelude one to raise it up. It would be nice it this was a perfect bolt on. I was also looking at the roof liner and it appeared to be almost identical to the accord. I left the liner, I would rather one that's vinyl or leather.

Ill most likely install it next week and give it a shot.

 

Just tried to swap a 1st gen Acura CL sunroof assembly into a 95 ex sedan at the junkyard, it doesn’t fit at all, the CL assembly is way bigger, I took it apart to see if the tracks would fit on the sedans assembly and it did not. I believe the sedan and coupe assembly are the same since on the website it’s the same part number.