Hello,
I bought my '96 XJR with a broken sunroof and quickly discovered how troublesome that was to repair. In the first few days I managed to break one of the valuable plastic pieces that clips onto the smaller interior panel. I was quickly informed that this was a rather catastrophic mistake as I would likely need to buy a full used assembly to get that stupid part. I broke that part because I tried to service the sunroof in the car (stupid). Eventually I decided to bight the bullet and remove the entire assembly. I did this after removing the headliner (needed recovering anyway). This turned out to be the right decision as some of the metal bits in the lift mechanism were broken so it needed to be torn apart anyway.

As of now, after performing the work outlined below, I have had a fully functional sunroof for about a year. Yesterday I completed what I hope to be the last step required to make the mechanism more robust (also described below). I'm not the best at documenting a project with pictures as I go. Some of it might be because I doubt myself and figure there is no sense documenting failure. Anyway, let me know if you have questions or comments.

The basic steps I took were:
- full disassembly of the entire sunroof assembly.
- purchased semi-good sunroof assembly out of '02 (maybe not needed for you, depends how broken yours is)
- modification of tilt-slide mechanism by removing plastic bushing and installing bronze bushings
- strengthening of plastic clips that hold the small interior panel by applying plastic epoxy to weak point
- addition of stainless steel clip to hold the spring loaded arm into the receiver (this is what I did most recently)

First, a quick review of the parts in question. This mechanism is the troublemaker. The "drain channel support" is probably the main failure mode, but it's far from the only. There is a spring loaded arm on the "main lever assembly" that often falls out of the hole in the "drain channel support". This is a problem because it is this arm the pushes the "drain channel support" in the track. The "drain channel support" also holds the smaller interior panel so I believe once this spring loaded arm falls out you are likely near more catastrophic failure modes. In my case the "slider driven lever", which is ~50% metal, had failed on one side. I also have noticed that the bushings on the "main lever cam slot" tend to fail which ends up causing major misalignment and could easily be the source of major failures as well. If your interior panel is lost in the headliner then odds are the "drain channel support" has failed at the back. You can see a small bump in this part at the top right end of the image below. That bump clips onto the inner panel and takes the load to pull the inner panel. Being as it's plastic this does not hold up well. As mentioned below, some cars appear to have a metal clip that augments this and helps prevent failure. To the best of my memory my '96 didn't have them, but the '02 assembly did. So, maybe it was a change for x308? If your sunroof is stuck and can't be moved through its normal motion then odds are you have multiple broken parts, but the first place to check would be the spring loaded arm that engages the "drain support channel" and is riveted to the "main lever assembly". If you see the end pushing against the inside of your exterior panel then you can try manually putting it back to see if that at least makes your mechanism work. If that's the case then you might only need the additional stainless steel clip that is the last step shown below (and mentioned in my list above).


Disassembly:
This is where I lack the most pictures, but it's not that complicated. Here are a few steps to follow:
1) tilt sunroof up and remove inner panel through the opening
2) unbolt the outer panel (6 bolts)
3) remove headliner if you haven't already, including the small panel with map lights and sunroof controller
4) disconnect the wires going to the sunroof control module
5) optional: remove the motor, this will make the whole assembly lighter which is good
6) unbolt and remove entire sunroof assembly. I can't recall off hand what door I used or what seat position I had, but an extra set of hands is very helpful here

At this point you can start the real fun.
0) I forgot to add this in the middle, but I believe you can do it not: remove the "cover". There are two and they are held in place with the "wedges". A small needle nose plyer can wiggle these free (don't lose them). Then the "cover" can be pulled off. If the small interior panel prevents access then remove that first (see step3)
1) remove the motor and control module (straightforward, a few bolts and clips on the module. They pull off easy enough, no need to keep track of any position)
2) in the first picture below you see a white plastic stopper and a gray rubber cap. Remove them, there is one on each side of the assembly
3) now you should be able to remove the smaller interior panel if it was still secured (if you are working on this repair then there is a good chance it fell off somewhere before now and you have broken bits). This is removed by undoing a black metal clip on each side near the rear. I'm not 100% sure all '95-'03's have these clips. I don't think my '96 did, but they were on the '02 assembly I bought. These are very good to have as hey help prevent failure of the plastic parts. This is located on the "drain channel support"
4) now you have an option, try to remove each slide/tilt mechanism with the cable attached or disconnect the cable. I disconnected the cable by bending the ends of the cable (didn't know any better). In the first picture you can see what those look like and notice they are still a bit bent. I used the cables from the newer sunroof so never needed to reuse this set, but I have no reason to believe I couldn't. The reason to disconnect the cable is just to have better control of what you are removing due to a lot less friction to overcome.
5) carefully pull the entire tilt/slide mechanism out the back of the frame. The "front lever" is spring loaded so there is friction to overcome, but it should slide. You can also pull the cable out now if it was disconnected
6) have a drink, now it gets harder

In the second image below you can see more or less what you should now have in front of you (except for the bronze bushing, that area will be black plastic). Hopefully your "drain channel support" isn't broken like the one in the picture either.

Making bronze bushings:
This is where there is actually some good news. The bushings I used are lightly modified from off the shelf mcmaster carr hardware. I used p/n 6658K721 from mcmaster. These are "oil-embedded 841 bronze sleeve bearing". They were $1.37 for a pack of 10 I believe. Unfortunately they aren't perfect (ID slightly small and too long). In the third image below you can see a comparison of the modification I made compared to a new mechanism.

1) remove the pin going through bushings in the "main lever cam slot" (pin in the red box in the thirst image below). It's press-fit into the plastic, but not super hard to get out
2) now you have a decision to make. The ultimate goal is to remove the plastic bushing from the "main lever cam slot". By bushing I mean the cylindrical section that the pin in step 1 was press-fit into. I did this the hard way by removing the entire "main lever cam slot" from the rest of the mechanism and machining it, but in hind site I probably wouldn't as chucking it on the mill put a lot of load through it. If you want to remove it (at least it's easier to modify when not part of the big mechanism), then remove the pin on the other end of this part. In the fourth image below you can see what the "main lever cam slot" looks like with the overmolded plastic removed (did this as part of my path to finding a solution). The pin you need to remove is pressed into has metal support so you don't have to be super worried about breaking something. If you want to modify the "main lever cam slot" w/o removing this 2nd pin then go to step 3
3) now you need to modify the "main lever cam slot". In the fifth image below you can see what you are shooting for. You need to carefully remove the plastic cylinder on both sides (this is the bushing). This might be easiest with a sharp knife or a dremel. What is very very critical is that you not remove the plastic that goes inside the "main lever cam slot" holes. I know that's confusing. In the fourth image below you see the two large holes? These will have plastic in them and you don't want to remove it because you still need it to hold the pin. All you are doing is remove the cylindrical part that you can see. The plastic is likely brittle so be careful. As mentioned above I actually did this on a mill, but I don't think that's the best way, but be careful
4) make your new bushings . The first step is to cut them to length. The bushings are oil impregnated so you don't want to get them too hot as the oil will just burn off. I think I used a disk sander as slowly as I could. My bushings are about 6mm in length each, but I suggest doing some measurement yourself
5) now you need to make sure the bushings rotate smoothly on the pin. The ID is very very close to correctly (you can probably push them on the pin as new), but I wanted it to spin. So, I just ran a drill bit through the hole that is smaller than the hole. I rotated the bushing by hand while running the drill. This slowly opened the ID of the bushing until I had a good fit
6) reassemble! The pins can be pressed back on and the bushings put in place by hand. I don't recall using any special tools here

Now you should have what you see in the 2nd image below. The bronze bushings are there and the main mechanism is good to go. The only other thing I would suggest checking is that the "main lever cam slot" slides smoothly in the slot. I found one of mine was not so smooth so I took a file to it and tried to remove any burrs in the slot.

Strengthening the plastic clip on the "drain channel support":
If your "drain channel support" is in one piece then congratulations, but I bet not. Odds are the clip end broke off (see the 6th image below). I don't have any additional pictures here, but you can see from this image where the weak point is. I simply cleaned the part and applied some plastic epoxy in that area to help strengthen the part. I was fortunate that I didn't need to repair a broken part as I salved a good one from the '02 assembly I bought, but I think you could. I would probably super glue the two parts together first and then apply the eboxy to add some structure. What is also critical is to have the metal clip available to help take some of the load. Overall you need to make sure you believe this joint is as strong as possible because otherwise the small interior panel will get lost in the headliner (again). This is your chance to add strength. The seventh image below shows this metal clip as installed in my car. It's the best I could get.

Stainless steel support clip:
This is manufacturing a metal clip that jaguar never made. I did it in a few hours with a dremel and a sheet of K&S SS sheet p/n 87165 which was 3/4" x 0.025". You could use really any metal so long as it has some corrosion resistance. SS isn't the strongest metal, but I thought I would give it a shot as the metal was easy to buy at my local hobby shop and should give the corrosion resistance that's needed. This clip is visible from the outside when the sunroof is tilted up so there is a good chance it will be exposed to moisture. I didn't spend much time trying to plan out my clip. The SS is soft enough to be bent by hand. Eventually I found a piece of aluminum rectangular part that I used to help form the corners, but you can really use whatever you want. Here was the basic steps:

1) Bend metal into a U-shape such that distance between the two legs matched the thickness of the mechanism. This is way way easier to do with the mechanism out of the car. It could be done with it in the car, but what a PITA that would be. I was fortunate to have spare parts laying around that I used for sizing the clip. Anyway, what you want is the U to have as tight of corner radius as possible. However you do it, make the corners tight and get the distance correct.
2) Cut to length. If you are accurate enough on the first bend then you only need to make one cut.
3) Cut slot on outer wall, half circle on inner front, small recess on top for the metal arm that we are trying to hold in place, and cut a tab that will be bend into place once installed. I know that doesn't help a lot, look at the pictures to get a better idea of what I mean
4) Install. To do this on the car all I had to do was remove the large interior panel as described in the beginning of the disassembly section above. It was really very easy. If you have everything on the bench then it's even easier. If you have made the clip correctly it will have a satisfying click when installed.
5) bend the tab into place. This helps to make sure the clip doesn't come lose. It will make removal hard, but that's the goal.

Assembly:
I'm not going to go into detail here. Everything more or less goes back together in reverse order. The only thing you will need to keep in mind is resetting the control module. There is document available to describe how to do this. It involves rotating a small wheel on the module until a dot appears and manually adjusting the mechanism to a specific location. If you need this document let me know and I can try to dig it up. It's easy. I found the motor install to be a little tricky as the two cables are not linked so you have to get them aligned properly to make it work. I suggest doing all that with the main exterior panel not installed. That way you can make sure everything works before loading it by the heavy steel panel. The other thing to keep in mind is that the exterior panel is hard bolted to the two tilt/slide mechanisms which means that it can put a side load on these mechanisms. So, tighten it down slowly, checking that the entire mechanism still slides smoothly by moving it manually (large screwdriver can do this at the motor). This is also when you have to align the exterior panel with the roof. This takes patience and can be really frustrating. Don't do this step quickly. Lastly, make sure to remember the spring loaded wind deflector. It can't be installed once the sunroof assembly is fully bolted into the car. You can drop the assembly slightly to put it in though. If you have specific questions I'll try to help.

In this image you see a gray rubber cap that is at the rear of the sunroof frame, a white plastic stopper that needs to be removed to get the mechanism out, and the end of the cables. The ends of the cables are visible bent slightly which I did upon disassembly to disconnect them from the mechanism which still in the frame.


Here is where the trouble is. It took me some hours of playing with it to figure out how it works, but even now it's hard to visualize how all the forces are transferred. In this image the "drain channel support" (right most part) is broken, but the rest of the parts are in working order. The spring near the middle of the image is out of place to make the picture possible (it usually clips under the metal arm in the background).


In this image I'm comparing my modified mechanism (top) to a new part (bottom). The red box is highlighting the modification.


In this image you can see what the "main lever cam slot" looks like w/o the overmodled plastic. Two main things to notice here: 1) the pin in the bottom right end is pressed into metal (strong), 2) the area in the upper left is where we are modifying things and the hole is much bigger than the pin. This means part of the plastic overmold is in these holes.


Here is what I ended up with after modifying the "main lever cam slot" and reinstalling the pin.


Here is what a broken "drain channel support" looks like. Look familiar?


Here is the best picture I could get in my car of the metal clip on the back of the "drain channel support". You want this!


Here are a few pics of the clip I made. It really wasn't that much work with a dremel, hammer, and needle nose pliers. But, you need to have the mechanism on the bench for sizing.


This is what the clip looks like installed. In the upper two pics the tab has been bent into place.


Daniel

 

Wow! Sticky this please! More sunroofs than ever will now be working properly. For those so motivated... Thank you Daniel for your documentation.

 

What an awesome write up.
Thank you for your time and effort.

I am hopeful of using this information in my upcoming repair.
​​​​

 

Thanks guys, I hope it helps!

Daniel

 

Damn dude! I have to do this to my XJR, do I absolutely need a second sunroof for parts? And I can use an X308 one?

 

It really depends on the condition of your mechanism. I had broken metal parts that required me to buy a second assembly. If nothing is broken then you can make the improvements and reassemble. If only the drain channel support is broken (usually the first to go), then you might be able to repair it.

The X308 sunroof assembly is identical to X300 so it’s best to find the newest one you can. I would worry less about mileage and more about age since we are talking about aging plastic.

Daniel

 

Plastic huh, I bet these are parts I could scan in or have CNC'd and made of metal. Tell you what, I'll take this one on and see about having metal ones made, I have access to CNC and 3D printers and I bet it something I could make better

 

Some photos of the 'drain channel support I took yesterday while working on my sunroof. Might be findable in a clips catalog somewhere, Avueco or similar.





One other point for people embarking on sunroof repair, once you have the frame out of the car on the table i found mine surprisingly hard to move by hand along the channels in order to slide back and disassemble. I oiled (light lock oil) the channels and mechanism liberally to help movement. It's important not to stress any of the flimsy plastic parts when pulling on it, the forward edge slider is the safest place to pull.

As the mechanism exits the grooves try to pay very close attention to what slides where to make it easier to reassemble.

The plastic 'outrigger' that attaches to the outside edge of the main metal assembly and doesn't appear to be essential has extremely delicate pins that insert through the two holes in the main unit. If you break a pin ( I did) tiny plastic wedges will not hold it in place. My solution was to heat a dress making pin and push it through the plastic, then fill the cavity behind with 2 part epoxy. This is stronger than the plastic.

 

Oliver Marks ,

Lube with some lithium grease as that may or may not thicken ( drying out ) over time ?

The carrier in the compound component will dissipate and leave the lithium component

 

* I forgot to say that you clean all the light oil off (and all the old lithium grease) while you are sorting everything out.Jag specified using Molykote 111 (100g tube) in the 90's tech bulletin. i liberally used multi purpose plumbers silicon grease. i also wire brushed the two control wires and then greased them. The fuzzy fabric had degraded and I was concerned fragments might detach and wad up in the channels and jam. A lot less load on the electric motor now!

 

did you ever make any parts? I need parts to fix my RH HNA1752AA. The cast metal piece broke off

 

This failed, I found a better alternative was to cut the remaining plastic locating lug off, line up the outrigger on the sunroof and drill a small hole in it through the hole in the main sunroof metal, then use a self tapping screw to fasten it together. It helped to have the jb weld behind to give the outrigger more volume to drill into.
The small screw I used was from a spare 1996 x300 trunk/boot switch. The rear chrome trim in 96 was plastic, so the screw was designed to self tap into plastic.

 

Adding to this thread that before you reinstall the sunroof mechanism in the car, I recommend replacing the three gold colored skinny bolts that attach the electric motor gear onto the frame and pressure the two control wires with three sheet metal screws with lock washers. I reinstalled my sunroof but the skinny bolts wouldn't hold in the frame, the threads are too thin and weak to withstand multiple uses so the mechanism wasn't working properly. Fortunately I hadn't put the headliner back in. I recommend cutting the sharp end of the sheet metal screw nearest the windscreen off so it doesn't touch the roof.
Also when you are getting ready to reinstall use a large flat blade screwdriver on the electric motor manual crank to make sure the gear is engaging and the mechanism is moving. This will avoid lying on your back in the car and removing the entire sunroof mechanism apparatus multiple times like I did, accompanied by colorful language .