I just pulled mine out this past weekend. I went with an aluminum plate to cover the opening, the plate I sued was a little on the thick side 1/8”. I decided to go with the thicker material for two reasons, my friend used sheet metal you can get at any local hardware store but it flaps around and makes a tone of noise. The second reason is I wanted to counter sink all of the screws so I had a relatively smooth look to it.
I first made a full size template using a CAD program at work, I was able to lay out the radius of the corners and location for all my holes. If I was doing it again I would make it a little different, now that that sunroof is out I can see spot that I would have rather drilled though. Once I had my template I then transferred it to my sheet of aluminum, I used a jigsaw with a metal blade to cut the aluminum. To get a nice straight cut I set up a guide for the jigsaw. The corners I cut free hand. Again I used my template and a punch to mark the centers for my hole then drilled and counter sunk all the holes. It wasn’t all that hard to make it just took time.
The fun part we took out the sunroof and again used my template the try and march the center line of the car, we missed by about a ¼” but it’s pretty hard the tell. We started by drilling one hole in the center and putting a screw in, then we worked out the edges skipping a few holes each time. Once we had all four sides snuged down I then went back and drilled the remaining holes. Then I removed the panel and cleaned all the holes up both on the car and the panel and put some paint in each hole. We used clear silicone sealant to try and make a seal. then we inserted all the screws and tightened it all down. Two things I found when doing the final fit one I don’t think we worked fast enough and the silicone started to set, and second we should have put sealant on the bottom side of the screw. I did get a few leaks around the screws but I pulled the one I had a problem with back out and added some silicone, hopefully that will solve the problem.
I’ll see if I can get some Photos up in the next few days.