Ever since I bought my 2001 SCrew in February, its had a bad rattle in the headliner. I THOUGHT it had something to do with the sunroof, because when I'd slide the cover back, I'd often hear it hit whatever it is that was rattling, and could feel the cover push it back.

For the longest time I thought it was sunroof related because when I open my sunroof, the cover doesn't automatically retract as well. I'd never seen that behavior in a sunroof before, so I figured there was something hosed in the mechanism that connected the cover to the sunroof to retract it. Is this normal?

I got totally sick of the rattle this weekend and someone managed to get into the headliner enough to get the part out. This is it:


This is in the middle of it (flipped over, this would be the side touching the headliner)


Looking at it, I no longer think it has anything to do with the sunroof, but looks more like a headliner support or some such. Does anyone know for sure what it is, how it came loose, how important it is, and most important, how much of a pain it is to get the headliner down to put it back.

Thanks!

 

From the pictures in the service manual (which leaves a ittle to be desired) I would say that is the roof opening pannel water trough, it is attached to two water trough guides that slide in to the tracks and the trough is secured to the guides with two screws. this piece appears to go across the back between the two rails. You could drop the headliner enough to see if thet left you a spare up there, but my guess that the bolts came loose and it finaly fell down. You will have to drop the headliner to do a proper repair time consuming but not that difficult.

 

Thanks. I finally fixed it by removing the sunroof glass. The repair was right easy to make then.

Those two little screws are destined to fail again, however. I'm going to have to come up with a better solution next time it lets loose.

 

There is a TSB through Ford on the Expedition's for this concern, i would assume that it applies to the SuperCrew as well. It involves a new water trough, and new slide/guides... Your local dealer ought to have the info on it.