Hey, it’s Tony. Thank you for watching the video and checking out the blog today. Our topic for this video is Installing Sunroof.
We’re just painting and prepping this Mazda Miata. It’s a one-day job. Now, I’m doing the sunroof. Basically cutting the size and the template that I bought.
I measured the center of my hard top and trace the whole thing so I know where to cut. Then, I’ll be drilling a 3/8 hole so I can fit my blade in to start cutting with the jigsaw all the way around.
This is fiberglass so it’s pretty easy for me. If you’re doing a regular roof like the one I did with a ’67 Camaro, it’s going to be the same process but with a metal tip.
I am dry fitting our universal sunroof. We measured everything out and it’s looking really good. From the edge of the sunroof to the edge of the hard top, it’s 7 and 3/8 inches on both sides. The edges are 8 inches. Check out the video as I show you the alignment.
We put all of our screws in now. It’s loosened up a little so we can move the whole roof around. Now, I’m marking all the way around it so I know where it’s going to sit.
This is where we have to put our black sealer for our rubber. Now, this is the weather stripping that I mentioned earlier. It’s a sticky sealer which seals the top and bottom of our sunroof and gives it a nice water-tight finish.
You can see that some of the sticky stuff are coming out. It was pushed out when we tightened everything. Use a razor blade to cut and pull it out.
Tightening the sunroof is like tightening a valve cover gasket. You want to tighten from the inside and work your way crisscrossing. Then, work your way out and go around. Now, let’s do our water test. Check out the video!
We used our knife to cut off the leftover sealer. Then, we’re going to wipe off all the sticky substance on the corners.
After which, we’ll clean it really well then prep it. Then, we’ll do watersanding with 400-grit.
This is an enamel paint job. When you’re sanding, you’ll see the paint come off, and you’ll know that it’s a single stage enamel paint job. Whereas if it’s a clear coat, you’ll see milky white stuff when you’re sanding.
I don’t know how old this is. It’s probably pretty old. Miatas came out back in the ‘90s. If you take a closer look, you can see all the chip marks at the edge. All I did was watersand it with 400-grit.
The very last step before paint is masking. Everything is masked up and we’re putting light primer on all of the areas where fiberglass and putty are showing. Then, we’ll dry sand it with 400-grit, tack it down and then we’re ready for paint.
We’re doing the jambs separately on this project. We’ll be doing the jambs along with the hard top. We’ll spray some clear on it and we’re on homestretch.
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It’s Tony from LearnAutoBodyAndPaint. I hope you enjoyed this short video of the Mazda Miata Series. If you’re a newbie and want to work on your car project, grab your FREE 85-Page Auto Body And Paint Manual. Join me in my weekly live show every Thursday at 9pm on my YouTube channel. Let’s talk auto body!
Talk soon! Cheers!
Tony
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