Article by: old skool
Article applies to: all BMW e36 models.
Well, since someone always asks why, the reason is that I need the black fabric shuttle to install into my current car so that I can complete the black headliner swap.
However, people have had problems with these and have asked in the past about this so here goes:
If you want to lift open the sunroof itself, then I recommend tilting it and then removing the two T25 torx screws on either side at the front of the sunroof. These torx screws hold the front of the sunroof in place and the slotted arms they fit into allow you to adjust the sunroof to get it flat and with the proper seal.
Here is a picture of where they are located (the right is the front of the car and the left is the rear):
Once these are removed you can lift the sunroof up and access items below. I would be careful and put a towel or other cushion around this so that you don’t mess up your paint.
Although it might technically be possible to remove this shuttle without removing the sunroof cassette from the car, I wouldn’t want the headache of trying…though I suppose if you removed the entire metal sunroof it would be easy to remove then.
If the power and cables are removed from the motor when you are doing this, you can manually operate the motor using an allen wrench. I believe it is clockwise to tilt and counter clockwise to open.
The sunroof mechanism looks like this with the motor removed. The gear on the motor turns and drives the screw mechanism to move the sunroof around.
This is what the bottom of the motor looks like:
In order to remove the shuttle you need to turn the motor in the direction of opening the sunroof (not tilt) and as soon as you barely do this, it will release the shuttle.
The shuttle is held in by a plastic arm that is keyed into the moving mechanism to move in concert with the sunroof.
Here is a picture of it:
Here is the funky catch it slides into so that you can’t push it back in certain positions:
The shuttle will drop down and look like this from the underside:
On the top side the shuttle will slide all the way to the back and you need to get it loose from the plastic arm guide. If you pull carefully on the shuttle you can slide it out of the catch and also push down on the plastic tab to release the double catch mechanism.
Now you have to remove the T20 torx screws:
The shuttle will lift off the rails:
