Replacing a Pontiac Fiero Sunroof Gasket

Published with Consent
Replacing Your Fiero Sunroof Gasket
By Chuck Kichline,  http://www.kichline.com/chuck/fiero/sunroof/

My sunroof had started leaking, and I luckily had a brand new sunroof gasket that had come with another Fiero I had owned.  I couldn't find a easy explanation of the process on the net, so I decided to take some pictures with my new Fuji FinePix as I did it.  Here's the starting point, I new that the way the gasket poked up at the corners couldn't be right.

After removing the sunroof and peeling out the gasket, I was left with a real mess.  The existing gasket was held in by what must have been an entire tube of black silicone seal.  I started to dig it out, and found a nice plastic bicycle tire tool so I wouldn't scratch up the paint.  I was also using a plastic body putty tool at this point.  Notice that lips of the channeling were completely filled with silicone, so I had to dig it out before I could mount the new gasket.

Lots of digging started to show off the channel and the gasket area.  This was the rustiest part. If the channel can rust like this in Central Texas, I can't imagine what the channel would look like around the coast.  If you're in a high rust area, you might want to order new sunroof channeling when you order your gasket.

Painting everything with Rustolium paint would be a good idea.

I was digging out RTV for about an hour and a half.  By now I'd pulled out a couple of screwdrivers and the shop-vac to help

While I was working on the gasket area, I unboxed the gasket and left it to flatten out in the sun.

Finally got the channeling cleaned out.  Guess what?  My Fiero had never had the drain holes drilled into the gasket moat.  This is one of the service notes.

So I got out my drill and 1/4" drill bit and drilled the holes.  This was REAL easy, the drill goes through the fiberglass without much pressure, and it has a distinct jump before you start drilling into things you shouldn't.  There should be one in each corner.

I laid out the gasket over the sunroof hole and got ready to install it.  The gasket had a large yellow mark that seemed to match up with the latch handle area, but the gasket seemed to fit better when the yellow mark faced forward, so I installed it that way.  I went around and one side at a time slipped the outer lip into the channel, then followed with my plastic tools and pushed the inner lip into the inner channel.  When I was finished I could see any places that were not properly tucked in by their wrinkles.  Do it, sit back, check it, and fix the mistakes.

So now it's all tucked in, and it's time to fit the roof.  I found that I had to reshim the sunroof latch to make it pull down a complete seal.  I also found a couple of loose Torx screws on the sunroof glass.  They're T-25's, and I intend to go back and reassemble the glass brackets with some RTV when I have a chance.

Back together again, it's as easy as that.  Took about 2.5 hours - 1.5 was cleaning the old RTV out of the channel.

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Powered by AkoComment 2.0!