Sun visor rebuild

jhjacobs

jhjacobs

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I have just cut open my my dirty old rotten sun visors and I intend to re-cover them. I have installed my new headliner and even got new sun visor do-hickies installed. I have spare headliner material (rear type) to cover the visors; the current material is think and rubbery - the same as on the forward headliner. The original material was melted around the foam; obviously I'll have to sew. My old foam is brittle and I am looking for a suitable material (like old mouse pads).

I would really welcome advice / tips from anyone who has taken on this task. :shock:
 
I'll post pictures. My headliner, sunroof version, was a real joy to do (I'm in sales so lying con natural to me) :). I can't say I am please with my work but I am not disappointed either. I'm planning to get creative with the sun visors. I am comfortable with the cloth work but the foam interior worries me. They were made with simple foam rubber and double-stick tape; not impressive.
 
I recovered seats in an Austin Healey 3000 which called for several different densities of upholstry foam glued together. 3M makes an adhesive for this purpose which works immediately and effectively. i would suggest trying a few different densities of 1/4" foam until you get the feel you want.- Paul
 
My sunvisors are going back on the car in a few minutes. I finally completed my rebuild and I am reasonably satisfied. I used the same material I got from World Ulph. for my headliner. It is a bit tedious to work with but after it sits for a while it stretches and smooths out nicely.

The subject of my initial post was asking for advice on filler / padding paterial. After seeing what 37 year old foam looks like I was not interested in repeating BMW's original selection. What I wound up using was more than perfect. I was able to cut the patten with scissors and then use a razor to cut a simple internal fitting for the visor center frame rod. I opened up the edges and pulled the frame in; I closed the edges and center area using weatherstrip adhesive. This process completely surrounded the frame with material.

When sewing the material I simply traced the old visor (cut off around melted seam with a razor) and sewed along the line then trimmed up. I also made a simple mirror pocket since the old holder was formed plastic and not reusable. I simply traced the hole and carefully sewed on an underlay (face to face then turned inside out) when I then top stitched very carefull. I left the entire side open with about 0.5" of material and hand sewed it after inserting the padded frame.

The padding I used I found at JoAnn Carfts; it is "Soft-n-Crafty" Premium Densified Batting; also called Nu-Foam. It comes in many sizes. I chose 15' c 17" x 1"; a single piese was enough for both visors.

In the photo my visor look a bit puckered. This will eventualy work out as they warm and stretch. In the photo I included the bad, the extra material, and the old dirty visor skin for reference.

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stirring the pot - just a little?

A few years ago, while stuck on a long long flight, the inebriated passenger next to me kept talking about urethane foam that would expand when released from a container. It is commonly used for insulation in houses and no doubt commercial applications. I do not have any personal experience with this product.

I told my flight-mate that it sure would be nice to just "inflate or renew" some of my flattened upholstery with such a product. He told me his company had done this in some marine seating applications but the results were poor because the urethane did not have enough give. It may have had other issues too. Again, I am not sure how easy it is to control this product, but I have wondered not only about seats, but also wimpy sunvisors.

I am familiar with the traditional methods described in this thread, and not saying I have a better plan. I just thought I would share the idea.
 
Many years ago I used some stuff like this. It was mainly for making custom foam packing inserts for oddly shaped items in boxes. The system involved a two part chemical reaction. We had two large tanks and peculiar nozzle rigging. You would place some plastic film in the bottom of a container, shoot in some foam goo. You would then drop in the item to ship, wrapped in plastic, and continue adding liner plastic and squirting in goo. The goo expanded into semi rigid foam fairly quickly (minumtes). Sometimes when you topped off the box and taped it closed it would continue to expand and the box would become rotund. I'm not sure if this is the stuff. If it is I would not recommend it because it had almost no elasticity; it's more like Styrofoam.
 
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