Gimme Friction

May 30, 2009 2:04 PM

Need help keeping it up! My car sun visor, that is.

My car is over seven years old, and the sun visor no longer stays up on hot days. Instead, it keeps falling down in front of my face. It turns on a metal rod attached to a plate that screws into the car ceiling. When it's hot weather, the thing loosens up and the visor refuses to stay in place. During most times of year, it's fine, but our Texas summer makes it droop.

I've tried tightening the screws, to no avail. I've tried putting pieces of velcro on top of the visor and on the headliner, thinking that would hold it up. The glue on the velcro comes off, leaving it stuck either on the visor or on the headliner.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? Maybe there's some sort of bizarro-backwards-antimatter version of WD-40 I could spray in it to give it more friction while still allowing it to be turned?

posted by Robert Angelo to grab bag (13 comments total)

Can you pull the visor off the rod and put tape over the rod for a tighter fit? Alternately, I would try WD-40's nemesis, duct tape. Keep a roll in your car, have a strip attached to the visor that keeps it stuck to the roof of the car.
posted by Night_owl at 2:29 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

Sew the velcro on! End sentences with prepositions! And exclamation points!
posted by nosila at 3:06 PM on May 30

If it's a Subaru - which are notorious for this - check out the two-dollar fix here. This is for an SVX (Alcyone) but it does apply to several of their models.
posted by jet_silver at 3:15 PM on May 30

I was going to suggest tape too.
posted by sully75 at 4:07 PM on May 30

If you don't mind a little wear and tear in the upholstery I'd use a safety pin or two. When the visor is up use them like regular pins, and when it's down close the pins and toss them in the change tray.
posted by waxboy at 4:27 PM on May 30

Large Document binder clips. The blue spring steel type with the folding handles.
posted by hortense at 5:29 PM on May 30

Squirt some epoxy into the hole where the metal rod goes, then when it sets up completely it should form a tight bond with the surrounding material but not as much with the metal rod, allowing it to still move, but not as freely.
posted by orme at 6:32 PM on May 30

Get Velcro without the sticky stuff on it (like used for sewing) and super glue the Velcro where you want it.

A couple rare earth magnets. You can either super glue them, or cut small holes in the upholstery and slide them behind it.
posted by Ookseer at 6:48 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

I know you said you tightened the screws but isn't there a couple of screws located at the left end of the visor where the pivot is that allows you to move the visor up and down and side to side? You should see a "ball" or "bar" that surrounds the pivoting piece? I think if you tighten these it should solve your problem. Barring that you should pop by the dealership of your particular model and see how much a replacement part would cost. I can't imagine it would be that much and it would sure solve your problem pretty quick.
posted by bkeene12 at 8:01 PM on May 30

Can you take it apart and get at the grippy bit or the metal rod that goes in between?

If so, take a nail file (or more approriate metal file) to the bar and roughen it up.

Stick a couple small pieces of tape in the grippy bit where it rubs against the bar. Electrical tape would probably work well. It's rubbery and will grip more firmly, and it will give you a millimeter more range in the screws to tighten it down further.
posted by Ookseer at 1:44 AM on May 31

Thanks for your suggestions. I had been hoping not to take the visor apart, but it looks like I'll have to do that.

I should have mentioned that the car is a Daewoo Leganza and there is no dealer anymore. I'd actually tried awhile back to order a replacement visor for the passenger side because the plastic cover for the mirror had broken. Replacement visors were not available at auto-parts stores nor on the Internet except on eBay; the one that I received was missing the mirror cover. :-( My mechanic can still magically get parts, but on this particular issue I'm trying to save money and deal with it myself.
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:26 AM on June 1

Loctite is the anti-WD-40. I don't know if it will do what you want but you can try it and probably not damage anything. It is usually used for metal-on-metal situations.
posted by chairface at 5:27 PM on June 1

If anyone stumbles on this, I finally fixed it. After a number of temporary measures failed, I followed Night_owl's suggestion. I also found a version of it on a car enthusiast web site (somewhere...) which suggested plumber's teflon tape. This is ideal, since it's very thin and you can wrap it to the particular thickness you need.

In this case, I was surprised to find that I could pull the visor all the way off the spindle with a little effort. All the parts - spindle and visor frame -- are plastic, although the visor is wrapped in cloth. It was still attached by some electrical wires which go to the light for the vanity mirror. With some contortions, I was able to wrap teflon tape around the spindle while it was still attached to the car's ceiling. It seems to be holding up.
posted by Robert Angelo at 8:08 AM on August 29