Since swaps are a common thing around here

Educate me on the feasibility of cutting the power sun roof out of one car and transplanting it into another car. Ready.... GO!

Something like this: 

Just cutting out the whole mechanism (which is a spoiler style sliding piece), say 6" outside for safety, cutting a matching hole in recipient car and melt some metal to make it stick. Some wires and blammo, sunroof. (obviously it'll be slightly more involved than "blammo")

Edit* Mods, Maybe this should be in the main GRM forum? since its 100% car related? I don't know.

What car? Pics?

In reply to NOHOME :

The donor is a 95 mazda mx6 thats destines for the scrapper. The recipient is an 05 ford focus.

How close is the shape of the sun roof to the shape of the roof skin?

In reply to Daylan C :

I'll need to bring the focus home to get a good idea about that. I may cut the sunroof out anyway, since the car is headed for scrap, but that is my favorite part of the mazda and I just thought maybe I could make it part of the ford. You know, for fun.

Welding the thin sheet metal and not having buckle or burn through will be really, really difficult.

If you can flange the edges, then you stand a chance.

In reply to Stefan :

The welding is not a problem. I'm more worried about the piece warping or getting out of true in the process, and was thinking about tacking on something to keep everything "straight" that I can grind off after the surgery.

I'm more worried about repainting and keeping the headliner nice-looking after the fact. And wiring. I hate wiring. But it should be simple in this application.

barefootskater said:

In reply to Stefan :

The welding is not a problem. I'm more worried about the piece warping or getting out of true in the process, and was thinking about tacking on something to keep everything "straight" that I can grind off after the surgery.

 

So in other words, welding is a problem? I like this idea though. What are you going to do about a headliner?

In reply to JamesMcD :

Yes and no. Worried about the piece getting set in place so that nothing in the mechanism binds during use. Less concerned about a little wrinkling around the seam. The recipient car has seen a few dings in the past and the paint is already compromised so I don't really have much to lose in trying. 

The headliner is a mystery still. My main plan is ask enough people for ideas until I hear a really good suggestion. Also worried about leaks a bit.

Take the headliner out of the donor, match it’s construction on the recipient.

when people plug sunroof holes, they rarely weld them outside of a few tacks.  It’s nearly impossible to weld without destroying the panel.

i would look at flanging the pieces so they overlap and you can glue/epoxy them together with rivets as physical locators and backup fasteners.  You have to use the proper rivets though.

Theres also drains down the pillars and added internal structure to the roof to handle the open hole as the roof skin is a stressed member of the chassis.

I suggest this because it’s how the T-top was installed on my old Daytona, which we found it when we cut it up for disposal.  The T-top was installed by ASC who also did a number of convertible installs for factories during the 70’s, 80’s, etc.

I commend you for trying if you do, but selling both and buying a focus with a sunroof already would be the easy button.

Heck, swapping your entire focus on to a focus shell with sunroof would probably be easier than swapping in a sunroof from a different car.

Make some templates of the curvature of the sunroof and surrounding panel and compare to the focus. They might be very different.

A wise old man once told me "Roofs don't leak till they have a hole in them."  He was referring to the recently introduced "skylights" people wanted put in the new homes we were building.  Several years later I special ordered an 80 Monza Spyder with a sunroof from my uncles dealership and it took about 6 months to arrive. First night I had it it rained really hard. Next morning I went out to my new car and sat in a giant wet sponge disguised as a cloth bucket seat.  All I could think of all day was the old man saying  "Roofs don't leak till they have a hole in them."

This is a really bad idea. Therefore, subscribed. 

In reply to Jay_W :

Subscription unnecessary. I went up to my parents tonight, where the focus currently lives, and took some rough measurements of the curvature per inch of that roof. It is a very gentle curve and the mazda is not. Needless to say I think I'll save my time and effort on this "bad idea." 

I had the idea today after thinking "If I scrap this car will I regret it?" The only thing I feel I would really miss is the open roof hole. I can live with that.

So thanks for all the input everyone. Once I have achieved homeowner status and have my own shop to play in I may have to revisit this idea just because.