stevj
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Visor Teardown.
When I drive long distances, I swing the visor to the left to block glare coming in the side window. I get less fatigued on those all-day drives because I'm not fighting that glare.
Recently, my visor began misbehaving, because a thin plastic piece surrounding the metal pivot elbow had split, allowing the visor an unintended freedom of motion.
I am 600 miles past warranty cutoff, so I have ordered a new visor, which means you all are winners of a dissection pictorial.
My visor has lighted mirror, and sports one of those trendy 3-button Homelink devices. Both the mirror and Homelink modules are "not serviced separately" so, except for replacing the lights for the mirror, if either one is FUBAR, a replacement visor is the only cure. So it goes with the plastic pivot elbow thingy. $120 + tax from the dealer.
Here's the under-engineered plastic piece that started all this. The plastic piece acts to restrain pivot motion (swing) of the visor. As you can see, there's a bit of slop in the action.
This next pic is of the Homelink cover, held with 3 clips and can be removed with a trim tool. The blue thing at top of the picture is a different trim tool I used to split the visor at the seam and wedge my way inside. The grey area that has your attention is what's left after I peeled off that irritating reflective sticker. I will try to remove the residue with some denatured alcohol and if successful, will do the same to the new one. Might try some black Plastidip spray on this broken one, too, just for S&G.
The homelink cover removed. The cover is all you get.
The white part visible through the hole in the visor "cloth" material is the inner support structure between the Homelink module and its cover.
The lighted mirror. This thing is held to the inner structure very securely.
I could not dislodge it, and to remove it without damaging it, I ended up attacking from the inside.
The inside. Here you can see the innards. The circled areas are pairs of clips that hold the mirror assembly. At the bottom is the slider, with the electrical contacts to feed power to the mirror lights and the Homelink.
This picture also gives a good view of the overall construction of the visor.
The mirror is detached. you can see the sets of clips that hold this thing to the visor: centered on left and right end, and three sets on the far side.
Clear tape holds the wires to the white backing piece.
Here's a closeup of the the Homelink module. I intend to repurpose this thing, since it still has life, and my garage door codes, in it.
And finally, here's the visor shell without innards. It's made of a dark, hard styrofoam-like material - fairly stiff even without the metal framework in it.
It's moulded (likely under pressure), covered with that easy-to-get-dirty-and-leave-finger-marks material that so many vehicle manufacturers seem to prefer these days, and is either glued or sonic welded around the metal framework and hardware.
You can see in this picture where the two halves were adhered to each other on 3 sides peripherally, and several spots scattered about the inside.
Well that's it. Hope you found the journey informative.
If you've ever wondered what's inside your visors; now you know.
Steve
When I drive long distances, I swing the visor to the left to block glare coming in the side window. I get less fatigued on those all-day drives because I'm not fighting that glare.
Recently, my visor began misbehaving, because a thin plastic piece surrounding the metal pivot elbow had split, allowing the visor an unintended freedom of motion.
I am 600 miles past warranty cutoff, so I have ordered a new visor, which means you all are winners of a dissection pictorial.
My visor has lighted mirror, and sports one of those trendy 3-button Homelink devices. Both the mirror and Homelink modules are "not serviced separately" so, except for replacing the lights for the mirror, if either one is FUBAR, a replacement visor is the only cure. So it goes with the plastic pivot elbow thingy. $120 + tax from the dealer.
Here's the under-engineered plastic piece that started all this. The plastic piece acts to restrain pivot motion (swing) of the visor. As you can see, there's a bit of slop in the action.
This next pic is of the Homelink cover, held with 3 clips and can be removed with a trim tool. The blue thing at top of the picture is a different trim tool I used to split the visor at the seam and wedge my way inside. The grey area that has your attention is what's left after I peeled off that irritating reflective sticker. I will try to remove the residue with some denatured alcohol and if successful, will do the same to the new one. Might try some black Plastidip spray on this broken one, too, just for S&G.
The homelink cover removed. The cover is all you get.
The white part visible through the hole in the visor "cloth" material is the inner support structure between the Homelink module and its cover.
The lighted mirror. This thing is held to the inner structure very securely.
I could not dislodge it, and to remove it without damaging it, I ended up attacking from the inside.
The inside. Here you can see the innards. The circled areas are pairs of clips that hold the mirror assembly. At the bottom is the slider, with the electrical contacts to feed power to the mirror lights and the Homelink.
This picture also gives a good view of the overall construction of the visor.
The mirror is detached. you can see the sets of clips that hold this thing to the visor: centered on left and right end, and three sets on the far side.
Clear tape holds the wires to the white backing piece.
Here's a closeup of the the Homelink module. I intend to repurpose this thing, since it still has life, and my garage door codes, in it.
And finally, here's the visor shell without innards. It's made of a dark, hard styrofoam-like material - fairly stiff even without the metal framework in it.
It's moulded (likely under pressure), covered with that easy-to-get-dirty-and-leave-finger-marks material that so many vehicle manufacturers seem to prefer these days, and is either glued or sonic welded around the metal framework and hardware.
You can see in this picture where the two halves were adhered to each other on 3 sides peripherally, and several spots scattered about the inside.
Well that's it. Hope you found the journey informative.
If you've ever wondered what's inside your visors; now you know.
Steve
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