Fitted a Sunroof

Today I fitted a sunroof which I removed from an early shape Peugeot 106 last week for the sum of £15. I also made a cardboard template whilst I was at the breakers by drawing around the hole onto some card, this saves alot of time. I fitted the same Britax sunroof in my last T4 so I knew they fit well and the plastic trim also matches the grey plastic in the T4. The sunroof is tilting and is also removable which is useful if you need access to the roof.

I wanted a sunroof as it provides some extra light and ventilation inside the van and I can also remove the piece of roof which had an ugly ventilator fitted to it in its previous life as a transco van.

I drew a line around the cardboard template after carefully positioning it between the strengthening beams. I then put some tape around the edge to protect the roof and drilled a hole and jigsawed the around the line. I then painted the cut edge with some red oxide primer and spent 10 minutes removing the ultra sticky tape I'd used with white spirit. I fitted the sunroof outer frame to inner frame by screwing the 20 or so torq head machine screws which clamp around the edge of the cut hole.

I then rinsed all the metal filings off the roof and also checked if the sunroof leaked, it didn't! I still have one more ventilator hole to remove in the next panel, I'm not sure what I'm going to do here but I might fit a mushroof vent like the type used on boats.

You might have noticed that the condition of my roof is not great. It appears that the muppet who fitted the ventialor had left the filings on the roof and these had stuck to the roof and caused little rust spots. The roof had also obviously never been cleaned properly so will need T cutting and polishing.