Okay, I am finally able to sit down and type this up. Keep in mind that it's been a week since I worked on my sunroof. Hopefully, I haven't forgotten anything important. **Please remember that this is concerning a '74 Super**; I believe the Supers are a little different from "normal" Beetles. A Bentley manual will help you out, although their procedures did not exactly match my sunroof. But, it did give me a basic idea of what I needed to do. Oh, and I'll use the perspective of sitting in the driver's seat facing forward (front means toward the front of the car, left means toward the driver's side, etc....). The best advice I can give is just to pay attention to the way things are as you take them apart. Draw pictures or write stuff down if you have to. Once you understand how the whole thing works, it will make it much easier on you when you have to put it back together.

Alrighty, then. Here goes nothin'.....

1. Open the sunroof about halfway.

2. The first thing to do is to remove the headliner panel from the sunroof itself. The panel is held on the front edge of the sunroof only, with clips kind of like those used on the door panels. It's a little hard at first. I ended up using a small screwdriver I use when working on my computer. I wrapped a small bit of rag around the screwdriver (so as not to scratch the paint on the sunroof), and used it to pry one corner. Once you get one clip loose, then you can use your hand, and gently pull the others loose - just like if you were removing a door panel. There are a total of 5 clips, again, along only the front side of the sunroof. Once they're all loose, slide the headliner panel as far back as it will go. (The panel cannot be removed until later on.)

3. Now, close the sunroof until it's open only an inch or so. With the headliner panel off, look at the sunroof itself. You should see 4 brackets attached to the sunroof, 2 on each side. First, you want to take off the front 2 brackets. These brackets slide along the tracks on each side. They should be held on by 2 screws each. Just remove the screws, and the brackets should come right off.

4. Now, look at the 2 brackets at the rear of the sunroof. These are connected to the sunroof cables. Again, each bracket has 2 screws holding it on. Going across each bracket, from front to rear, should be a thin strip of metal, maybe 3 or 4 inches long. The front end is held to the sunroof by a tab, and the back end should be sitting on a round piece that looks like a roller. Pull down on the back end, and rotate it towards the center of the car. At about 90 degrees, the front end will clear the tab, and the piece will fall out. Do this for both pieces. Now, you can remove the screws holding on the rear brackets. When the screws are loose, you will notice that there is a spacer between the screws and the bracket itself. Remove these spacers, also.

5. Okay, the sunroof should now be free. It'll be easier to remove the sunroof if someone pushes it up from inside the car; then you can get a good grip on it from the outside, and get it completely out of the car. Carefully set it on a pile of rags or something, as not to scratch it at all.

6. Now look at the opening from outside the car. On each side of the opening you will see a track. If you look at them close enough, you should be able to see where the cables are. Along the front edge of the opening you will have a chrome piece, with I think 8 screws in it. This will be the next piece to come off. Remove all the screws, and lift the piece out. (you may have to carefully pry it up with a screwdriver, until you can get your fingers underneath it) You should now see the cables. In the center you should see a clip covering the cables. Directly under the clip, is the gear that is connected to the crank handle. The clip holds the cables tightly against the gear so nothing slips. The clip should easily pop off; again, use a screwdriver if necessary.

7. Next, look at the tracks on each side, looking from above the car. In the center of each track you should see 3 screws. Take out these screws, and then pop out the rectangular pieces from the tracks. Try to be gentle; after taking out these last screws, there is nothing left holding them to the car. If you have reason to, you should now be able to spread the tracks apart enough to get the headliner panel out. I left mine in.

8. Now it's time to remove the old cables. Look at one track. You should be able to see where the track on the side meets with the track that goes along the front edge. You want to lift up the side track at this point, grab the cable, and gently pull it along with its bracket out of the track. Do this for both sides. With the cables out, you may want the check the gear. I had gotten a new one for mine, but decided the old gear looked just fine. If you need to replace it, you just need to pop of the e-clip that holds the gear on.

9. Before re-assembly, inspect the tracks and gear, and remove any old grease build-up that you see. Then apply new grease to the tracks. I just used general all-purpose black grease. Just be careful not to get it all over the roof or worse, the headliner.

10. Assembly is, as you might expect, pretty much just a reversal of dis-assembly. One thing I didn't realize is that the crank handle has built in stops. If you crank it one direction, it will eventually stop, and then when you crank it the other way, it will stop too. It didn't know this, and when I was all done, the sunroof stopped opening with about 2 inches to go. I think what you should do is put in the new cables, and put the side pieces and screws back in. (make sure you have the headliner panel back in if you took it out) Adjust the cables so that when you look across the roof of the car, the cables line up with each other. Make sure they're forward far enough so that you will be able to attach the brackets back to the sunroof. Make sure the cables are in their tracks, pop the clip back on over the gear, and (this can be tricky), put the track cover piece back on. Attach the cover with maybe 2 screws on each side, as you will have to take it back off again. Now put the sunroof itself back in, and connect all the brackets. Don't forget the long metal springs too. Now, crank the sunroof open. Open it until it is just completely back in the roof, or until it is open as far as it will go. Now, take the chrome cover back off the front edge, and pop the clip back off. With the cables away from the gear, crank the handle counterclockwise (as looking from above the car) until it hits its stop. If the sunroof hadn't gone back all the way, now you can push it back manually. Now, put the cables back down in their tracks, and put the clip back on. Finally, put the cover back on, using all the screws. Now try the sunroof again. It should close all the way, and open all the way, and should stop before the sunroof goes back too far. Now, close it until it's got about 2 inches to go, and pull the headliner panel up, and reattach it onto the sunroof. Finally, close the sunroof all the way. If the crank handle is not in the right place, just remove the screw that holds the handle on, pull off the handle, line it up where it should be, and put the screw back in. That's all!! You should now have a perfectly operating sunroof.

    - Clinton Saari

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