Hi guys, i opened my sunroof the other day to hear a horrible crunching sound. I decided to take away all the roof lining and sound deadening to investigate. I was to be met with some rust patches

I decided to sand and wire brush the visible rust away, and tapped the rust areas to see how weak they were....... weak they were indeed and now there is lot of holes everywhere

The area thats in fact rusty is the (sub) roof if thats what you call it? its what the sunroof sits on between that and the main roof itself if it were?

Does anyone know how this is attached to the main roof or if there is any way of removing it without cutting it off! The holes are everywhere and it is really bad. It WILL need to be replaced! Thankfully the main roof itself itsnt too bad with just some minor surface rust and discoloration.

Im hoping i can get this sub frame removed helping me reach the under side of the main roof itself, allowing me to treat the rust before it comes through. Then replace the sub roof with a new one.

Anyone had this problem before, also what is the proper name for this (sub) roof / frame ? Can you buy these as replacement? or would it be worth just cutting the old out and replacing with some other metal shaped like it

Im really stuck here i guys and dnt know what to do ??

 

Sadly mate it's a whole new roof or cut it out and plate over the hole, very common problem with S2's

 

:w all:

Bollocks. I was hoping you wouldnt say that. Ok.... i dont wanna go for the new roof, so i guess that leaves me with the welding option. If i cut a very large square shape into the rotten piece this will allow me to get to the roof underside and treat and paint the rust there. Then itll just leave me with replacing the the square and welding up the holes yes?? Is there some metal i can purchase in sheets that i can take down for the garage to use of if i go down and show them would they be able to look at it and have a good idea about what to do ? :s

 

Could put a carbon roof on and get rid of the sunroof

 

carbon roof or buy a scrapper mk4 escort with a non sunroof and chop it of at each pillar post(do the same with the RS and weld the non sunroof roof to each pillar?)

 

Your be lucky to find a mk4 roof with sunroof there all rotten mate as said carbon roof skin nice option.

 

scrap mk4 will no doubt rust again at some point how much are carbon fibre roofs? can u get the same finish on the paint ?
Its not the roof thats really bad its the sub frame underneath, will upload some pics in a day or so, so you can see where. Im preying it can be repaired with some cutting and welding & some very effective treatment in between for the surface rust. This of course will be a short term preventative measure, trying to with hold spending loads cash on a new roof

 

no it wont, non sunroof cars never rotted under the roof. the sunroof ones did and the cassette, not subframe rotted even worse.

You're likely to damage the roof if you dont know what your doing.

The carbon roofs are over £600 now, but if you buy a non sunroof car you''ll be looking at spending money on the car, plus labour for someone to chop it off and fit it to the RS. So again that'll cost over £600 in total.

If theres rust under the outerskin, and starting to show on the outside you can wave bye bye to the roof.

You got 2 options sell the car, or keep it and fix it.

 

i replaced a sunroof tray on a mk4 orion once it wasnt that difficult there is about 6-8 spot welds inside the sunroof closure and the rest is just bonded to the roof skin underneath i just warmed it up with a heat gun and ran round the seam with a stanley knife it is possible. have you lloked at mk6 trays someone told me the mechanism is similar so my be able to use the tray to. while the tray is out you can also repair any rusty scabs that normally appear around the sunroof.

 

Orion cassette trays are different to the MK4 Escort ones....... and there was never a MK4 Orion.

 

ok mk2 orion i ment, and the tray i used was removed from a mk4 escort

 

I assume it had been mod'ed to fit as the tray has 2 support brackets at the rear to hold it onto the tailgate frame.

 

Here's a pic of the one i removed from my car, and to say this was pretty 'mint' as the chavs would say!

The tray had one small hole above the drivers head where the drain hole is, the rest was perfect....as you can see the inner side of the roof skin was caked in flakey rust..... Again this was pretty 'mint' but you could feel the rust and it showed one small bit on the outside.

I got rid of it before it would cause me trouble in the future.

 

Just to clarify, if it is only the cassette thats rotten and it has not hit the outer skin and you can get hold of another cassette it can be repaired?

Asking as I am considering on putting my RS back together but the sunroof issue is really making me think I should break it. Its only my cassette that is rotten and I do have a clean one put away.

 

I put a cassette in mine abit fiddly but not too hard a job.

 

Good to hear. I think I researched this last time and thats why I bought the cassette off TWINS on here but just forgot as it were 5 years ago when I was going to get it back on the road and then didn't.

I haven't even seen it in the last 2 years as Its been covered up and in a lock up. Im hoping to take it out as soon as we get a bit of weather and check it out to see if the rot has got worse. Hopefully it hasn't.

 

Haha I got mine off twins too. Think theres a few spot welds down the sides and along the front of the tray then the rear is bonded with a couple of spots on the little brackets. Was two years + since I did mine but it wasn't hard just be careful with the heat from the welder warping the roof.