Moonroof separation from the headliner Q&A

Questions by Casebrius & Extrav.Dreams (from www.BimmerForums.com)

Answers by Croak (from www.BimmerForums.com)

(Note: this has been copied/pasted from the forum and might contain offensive language. I decided to keep the text true and not modify it in any part.....Filip)

Question (by Casebrius): My moon roof separated from the 'inner' portion , or headliner portion. Has anyone else experienced this, and how hard is the fix? It still slides back when fully opening the roof, but doesn't do anything when using 'vent' mode.

Answer (by Croak):The liner panel friction attaches to a piece on the back of the sunroof assembly, when you have it in tilt mode, you can see what I'm talking about, it sort of blocks the rear opening of the sunroof like a spoiler, to keep water from flowing in, etc.

If the two clips that hold that piece to the sunroof adjustment bar come loose, and then you open the sunroof, that piece gets shoved way back in the cassette, and doesn't move forward anymore, allowing the inner liner to just move around all over the place, or not move at all without help.

The fix is to fish it out of the back, which is a real bitch, since you can't see in there, and you need something thin, long, and with a hook on it, and chances are good it's wedged as well.

Unless you're really lucky, you pretty much have to take out the headliner, and drop the cassette to get to it. Hopefully, it isn't fucked up and you can re-use it. You'll probably need new clips at the very least.

Not a fun job.

Question (by Casebrius): Yikes, thats the best answer yet Croak - not the easy fix answer i was looking for, but a believable answer. Have you attempted to fish your out - how do you know about this problem. this fix sounds like a costly deal. I REALLY don't want to remove my headliner. If it isn't possible to do w/o taking liner out, I guess I'll live with this problem for the life of the car, which i hope is another 50 years or so

Question (by Extrav.Dreams): yea mine does that crap also... but it doesnt really bother me.. except during hard acceleration when it goes *SHHHHHH WHAM*

Answer (by Croak): Taking out the headliner is NOT a major operation. You remove the screws holding in the sunvisors, behind the "oh-shit" handles, remove the B pillar covers (which means you have to remove the 17mm seatbelt bolt first), remove the C pillars, and pull off the felt sunroof gasket. It just drops down after that, and with some care, you can work it out of the car. Easiest way is to recline both front seats fully, giving you some clearance. Don't worry about a little crease in the board material, once it's back up, the crease is invisible.

Now you have the cassette exposed, there's a shitload of Torx screws holding it in place. You can try just removing the rear half, that should drop it down enough to give you clearance to get in there and fish out the stuck piece.

But first, make sure the piece IS stuck. You can verify this by putting the roof in tilt posisition. You should see a bar that runs the length of the sunroof, attached by three nuts to the sunroof itself. On the end of that bar on either side are attached the slider/lift rails, and the rear piece I was talking about. It looks VERY similar to the piece that pops up in the front when you slide the roof back.

If it's not there, then do the above. If it is there, it's just a matter of getting the slider lined up, which I can't explain, takes some trial and error.

Extrav.Dreams: You can take a couple pieces of cardboard, fold them up so they're about a quarter inch thick each, tuck them into the headliner towards the front of the car, and then slide the sunroof panel underneath them. Gives you a nice snug fit, invisible to the eye, and no more SHHHHHHH WHAM!, but you'll need to remove them to open the roof. That's what I did until I got around to fixing mine.