Alright, i have a warped sunroof sliding cover so i've never seen my sunroof open since i have had the car (9 months now). I finally took the sliding cover out, since i bought one off a parted car in the classifides section. I tried opening it and it wont... I can only have it tilted. When i hold the open button it goes quiet then i hear a click as if it let off. I took off the spotlight unit and the rubber cap protecting the sunroof motor shaft... I read that if u have a problem closing u turn it clockwise to get it back into position. I figured if i turn it counter-clockwise it will open it, but then again i dont know of i press the close button, it will close or not. Anyone know what the problem might be and why the motor refuses to retract the sunroof?

 

I had a similar problem after replacing the glass in mine, turned out the sunroof was just misaligned, is the glass bolted to the sliders properly. Oh yeah and how did you get the cover off without removing the headliner?

 

Since it was so warped i simply squeezed the cardboard and also the little sliders from the track broke off by the previous owners slamming it back while it was warped, it was easy to pull out.

 

Hey jack,

what car did you pull your new sunroof off of? was it a perfect fit or did you have to make slight alterations? if so please give details... my sunroof might as well just be a carboard box .

 

I had that problem. There are cast cam brackets that the sunroof mechanism slides on to retract the sunroof. Mine were broken (only about 1/8" thick where they break) from trying to open sunroof after an ice storm years ago. I found a talented welder that could weld mine back up on the car. To see if that's your problem, you need to pull the sunroof glass and look at the mechanism from the top.

To do this, from inside the car, remove two plastic trim pieces, one on each side of the sunroof. One screw each. These cover eight 10mm nuts in four pairs that hold the sunroof glass panel in. Just remove the nuts, and the sunroof glass comes right out from the top. There are shims between the sunroof panel mounts and the mechanism arms; make sure to keep track of how many and what thickness they are at the 4 stud pair locations.

I didn't take out the sunroof motor when I did mine; so if that's what you did I can't help you there.

If your shade panel is warped; it's probably because some or all or 4 roof pan drains are clogged so water leaks into the shade panel and from there into the car interior. Mine used to dump a quart of cold water down the back of my neck when I hit the brakes after a car wash. The sunroof was NOT designed to seal water tight against the car roof. The entire roof panel/headliner is a drain pan with drains at each corner. Mine were plugged up - I had to blow them out with compressed air, and the back ones are hard to reach. The two back ones go to hoses that exit underneath the car in the 'sides' of your trunk area behind the rear wheel. One of mine was plugged down there also; used a coat hangar to 'roto rooter' it out so it would drain.

Lots of posts here on this forum on handling the leak problem - even pulling the entire headliner. Use the forum search engine and search on 'Sunroof' and 'leaks' and 'headliner' and you'll find them.

 

Thanks for all your help you guys, i'm going to crack it open and see where the problem is... Well, I don't have a leak problem, i was simply curious as to why it won't retract back but it will tilt up and down. I'm not on crack but I mean 1990 SE's come with sunroofs not moonroofs right?

 

moon roofs and sunroofs are the same I think. I may be wrong but I was told that moonroof was a term coined by ford in the 70's so they could be different...

 

Oh, i thought moonroofs were just the ones that tilted up and down but u maybe right since i've heard the term moonroof and it slid back and forth. But either way, i know mine should slide back and forth but doesnt... The buttons even say, up/down back/forward.

 

Nope. The Maxima sunroof both tilts up and retracts. Press your rocker switch one way, it tilts up. Press it the other way, it's supposed to retract into the roof (If it's popped up at that time, it will close first and hit a 'stop'. Press it again, and it will retract). If it doesn't retract, you'll have to pull the sunroof panel to see what the mechanism is or isn't doing; and by looking it will be obvious how it works. This is not a big deal, will take you all of 15 minutes to have the glass out if you need to see why it's not retracting. Takes a screwdriver and a 10mm socket and ratchet.

 

Ahh thank you guys so much. I got around to it today and found out that one of the little metal sliders that broke off the sunroof shade was blocking the segment of track which led to the combining of the bracket that tilts with the rest of the mechanism that slides. Took a good 45 minutes start to finish. Thanks again.