R52 Front Roof brace rattle

[PaulyEvans]

Hi, my MCSC has developed a nasty rattle in the roof which I fear may just get worse until there is a disaster. The rattle is only heard when the sunroof bit is open but as I drive down country lanes quite often this is very annoying.

The rattly squeak comes from the connection where the front brace joins the side rails on the driver's side (UK). On the other side the brace is firmly bolted/screwed to a carriage in the side rail but on the driver's side there is about 2-3mm of vertical play. I think I can feel the top of 2 countersunk screws through the outer canvas of the roof but can see no way of getting in to tighten the screws. I haven't been able to find a sufficiently detailed schematic or maintenance guide describing the assembly.

I had thought of inserting a soft plastic or felt something in between the brace & the carriage to stop the movement but am worried it'll prevent a good water-tight seal on top of the windscreen. I can live with the rattle (adding to the many!) but my main worries are that the screw heads will eventually damage the canvas roof or the brace will completely separate from the rails.

Has anyone else come across this or know of a fix?

[Angib]

I wonder if studying this BMW repair guide may help - or possibly it will make you happier to pay money to the dealer!

BMW TIS - 54 34 120 Replacing convertible top fabric

Obviously you would only need to do the first 4 or 5 steps to get at the joint you mention, but I'm not sure I've got the b**ls to go even that far.

[Minini]

This should be a relatively easy repair: -

- Open the sunroof section about halfway
- Working inside the car, on the back edge of the front brace you'll see a plastic strip which runs almost the full length of the brace. Pull this off and then peel the (now exposed) material off the brace. This relieves some of the tension in the front section of the roof.
- Working outside the car (on the offending side!) - if you look along the side edge of the roof at the rear of the brace you see a tesnioning wire (fairly fine black PVC coated wire with a crimped on bright metal hexagonal shaped end). Unhook this from clips / hooks on the brace - it's 'weaved' between them and can be undoe by hand.
- It is now possible to gently peel back the roof fabric from the brace - work from back to front. A plastic 'skirt' (for want of a better descriptor) is attached to the bottom edge of the fabric and this is tucked under the brace. You should be able to ease it free eneough to get at the screws.
- I would remove each screw in turn and put a bit of fresh locktite on them. They should already have been loctited at the factory (and also dabed with paint on their heads) so stange they have come loose!
- Reverse the above to put everything back in place. Hopefully there should be enough residual glue / stickness the re-attach the material to the back of the brace (make sure to tension the fabric evenly). If not just use some double sided tape.

[PaulyEvans]

Thanks for that, you make it sound so simple that I must give it a go this weekend (rather than fitting shelves!). Again, big thanks. Paul

[PaulyEvans]

Thanks Angib & Minini, because of the knowledge from you two the job took all of 5 mins to fix & didn't require any hideous dismantling of the roof mechanism. I simply opened the first stage of the sun roof about half way, removed the 1" thick cover that runs the width of the inside of the roof (just pulls off forwards). I peeled back the very edge of the back-most part of the side of the roof fabric (obvious when you're doing it), pulled forward enough of the tension wire to slip it out of its retainer. Then the hardest bit was pulling forward the plastic underside "skirt" of the very front of the roof fabric on the side where the rattle emanated; I only needed to lever off one of the clips to peel back enough fabric to expose the rattling bolts. The two were very loose! After removing, locktiting & replacing the 2 bolts, reassembly complete took about 60 seconds. Hey bongo job done.

Can't thank you guys, enough.

Next job the rattly wires in the windscreen top that feed the roof switches.