Major Progress! - Roof is Back On

These past few days have been an emotional roller coaster ride of butyl rope, rivets, and shattering plastic. But, I think the ride is starting to smooth out.  

I'm sure I'll talk all about it in the next episode, but the gist of the story is that the butyl rope I ordered (for adhering of the roof to the chassis) is too thick. The roof was sitting way too high off the frame when installed. I took everything off and ordered thinner rope. It was too thin... So I had to double stack it in order to get it to be thicker, but now it was too thick again... Not quite as thick as the first go around, but still not ideal. With Elyse's help, I was able to get it squished down and getting to where it's more or less correct. It shouldn't be too much of an issue, if at all, but it's just one of those things that's not quite perfect and it's really bothering me. 

The sunroof tracks that hold the weatherstripping in place also secure the roof to the frame by sandwiching it down. It was secured to the roof panel by rivet's from the factory. I tried to re-rivet it in place using the factory holes, but the rivets I had were too tall to fit in a few of the cavities... After a few failed attempts and chipping some paint later, I ended up just drilling a smaller hole next to the factory rivet holes and secured the tracks to the roof with small sheet metal screws. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS SAY TO DO. I just wanted to try to keep it factory, but clearly that wasn't the best idea. The teeny tiny spot where paint chipped on the edge of the sunroof cutout was fixed with a little bit of touch-up paint. Not perfect, but not noticeable either. 

With all that done, the last pieces that are preventing the interior from being re-installed are the sail panels. There's two clips and one bolt for each one. The driver side installed flawlessly, but the passenger side... not so much. One of the plastic retainers for the clips broke off. I tried gluing it back on, but no dice. The forces acting on it were just too strong for superglue to hold. Since it was only the upper clip that broke, I ended up just adhering a thick piece of foam insulation to the top of the panel that slides underneath the roof. With that on there, the bottom clip installed, and bolt still holding on, it should be enough to hold it still without rattling all around. 

The door panels are just thrown on for the photos, so don't get too excited haha. There's still a bunch more interior work to go before they can go back on. At this point, there really isn't much more that could go wrong. Well, there's no more gluing roof panels or tiny fragile plastic pieces to worry about. It's just bolting things back together for the most part. 

Sorry for the lack of update videos! I hope the post explains a little bit of why things have taken so long! If you've made it this far, then I want to say thank you and also inform you that there will be a little project video posted here tomorrow :)