Hello,
I was able to pick up a 1970 challenger project recently. Lucky for me someone has put a sunroof in the car at some point. I have seen these patched with a flanged and it worked very well. would that be the way to go or replace the whole roof? If i remember correctly the 1970 had less roof supports than the later years. I havent pulled down the headliner to see if the brace has been cut out . I thought that the 71 and up had a forward brace?
$500 and you have a new AMD roof skin. Why bother trying to patch something up? Unless you're a really good metal fabricator and welder, you'll be time and money ahead to just replace the whole roof.
I'd pull the front and rear glass out and vinyl roof if equipped before I'd make that call? Not uncommon as I'm sure you know to have rot in the glass channels?
Did someone say "SUNROOF CHALLENGER ?" :haha: :haha:
Trying to weld up that big hole without warping the crap out of the roof would be a challenge and then you will have to skim with body filler - no thanks, just put on a new roof skin.
My Cuda had a dual flip up sunroof installed sometime during it's troubled past. I considered patching it, but the condition of the front and rear gutters where the glass mounts made it a simple decision to replace the skin. If the rest of it were perfect, I would consider patching. The skin replacement does not look like a really hard job where as getting the patch in without warping or using a lot of filler would definitely tax my skills. Would be fun to try and worst case you replace the skin. All that is assuming you are not paying someone $100/hr to do the work.
I replaced every panel on my cuda and the roof was probably one of the easiest part I replaced. Patching a big hole in the center of the roof would warp pretty bad. You'd be using a lot of filler unless you're a good metal guy.
I would think that no matter how much effort you put into it (maybe I'm wrong), any time it got into the sun and got hot, you are going to see the outline of the repair unless there was a literal crap ton of filler and that has worse implications. I agree with replacing the roof since it's an available option and will, in the end, result in a much better repair. Probably cheaper in the long run as well.
I would buy a replacement roof. The question is do you replace the entire roof or just the section that is cut out? Removing the complete roof and replacing was not real easy, but also not super difficult. The hardest part was cutting out all the spot welds. I went through MANY cheap ones. Do yourself a favor and buy a good quality one or two. This took a bit of time. The other part is finding and digging through the lead in the rear.
Installation was easy. I bought a hole puncher and punched holes where the spot welds would have been then welded it up. A couple harder parts was using eastwood's 'lead' kit to fill in where the original lead was. The hardest part was fighting gravity. It was easy, just took a lot of trial and error. The next part that was fustrating was how the gutters went back together. No instructions. Take plenty of pics and video to refer back to, else you might be visiting car shows to see how it was done. LOL. I had some misfitting in the rear quarter window area. My trim doesn't fit quite right.
It would be much easier to cut out the portion that you need from the roof and weld it in. But as noted above, warping from the heat might be a concern. Perhaps if you were to cut it at the creases you could limit some of that. I would consider that an option.