Ending the sticky Sunroof: A REAL solution

I've read a lot about the sticking of SVX sunroofs, and I've tried a lot of the fixes mentioned here, all of them in fact, but none were working for me. I tried cleaning everything... I tried lubricating the tracks with silicone like the TSB suggested, and I tried adjusting the sunroof clutch nut a little bit...

None of it worked. Here's what I ended up doing, and hopefully we'll all have working sunroofs if you do what I did. I cleaned the tracks, and then sprayed them with white lithium grease. I tried silicone, but there were still tiny pieces of dirt in the tracks that just made the movement kinda jaggedy, and it sounded AWFUL (think pieces of sand between two metal plates). The lithium grease will probably attract dirt, but it DOES make it slide a lot easier, quieter, and mroe smoothly.

I then read about the sunroof clutch nut, located rearward of the dome light. The nut is not some 'weird' size, it's a 14mm nut. The reason you can't get a socket on it is that it has a metal washer behind it, that is bend downwards to keep the nut from rotating.

What you need to do is bend the tabs back to allow the nut to rotate, I did this with a small screwdriver and a hammer. You don't have to bend them back all the way, I only did so partially, just enough that I could get a socket on the END of the nut. I was never able to get the socket fully onto the nut, but it didn't matter.

Now it gets tricky. I had the keys in the car, and pressed the sunroof button. You'll notice that the nut spins around while the sunroof is moving. Open your sunroof.... okay. Now press the close button, but watch the nut. Your sunroof will close, but the nut will continue to rotate for about a second or so.

That is SLACK, and it is thy enemy. You must tighten the nut (clockwise) to remove this slack... I adjusted mine so that once the sunroof closes, it rotates about 1 turn. That's a LOT less than it used to, I'm guessing I ended up turning mine about 720 degrees at least.... 2 whole turns.

Once you finish with that, try to pry up the metal washer tabs a little, but it's no big deal really. It doesn't really matter. Put the plug back in, and enjoy your quiet, smooth, unassissted sunroof, the way subaru intended it to be.

- Jim