Hi Guys,
I was bored today because I’ve got a friggin’ cold so I had some time to put this together.
Here’s some pics and info about how I assembled the new visors. Of course the originals were completely disintegrated inside so I would up making the new ones out of some 1/8" plywood I had lying around. I used the original coverings to draw the pattern; I arbitrarily made them 1/8" smaller all the way around (except where it attached to the shaft) than the covering to allow for seam and foam tolerance inside.
I attached them to the original shafts with 1/8" aluminum pop rivets. Aluminum because they can be easily peened flat with a hammer and punch. I used a pop-rivet-washer on the wood side to keep the rivet from pulling though. Be sure to attach the wooden blank to the correct side of the flap on the shaft you’re attaching it to. The top of the visor (the part that contacts the roof when they’re up) is the flat side - the side without the bump.
When I made the plywood visor I left a little more space between the shaft and the visor itself on the mirror sides because I knew this would be where the blind-stitching would happen. Also be careful when putting them together to pay attention to the hole for the return springs, as in don’t forget it has to be on the mirror side of the visor.
To create the bump I searched high and low to find a cardboard tube that would work. Came across these Estes BT-20 Model Rocket Tubes that were the absolute perfect size.
The tubes have to be slit down the middle to go over the shaft so I used an I-beam style level to hold the tube in place while I slit them with a new razor blade. The tubes are pretty light weight so I doubled them up, one inside the other, after slitting.
The tubes need to be supported in the middle and they need a place to glue them to. I just cut a thin piece of the same 1/8" plywood and glued it between the flaps in line with the edge of those round washers that form the closed end of the tube/bump. You can see below that I also wrapped the shaft that is inside the tube with some foam to give them some more support but I don’t think this was really necessary.
I cut a small relief in the end to clear the metal flap and glued in the tube. The back is pretty flat so you just spread it out and glue it to the plywood. No pic of that unfortunately. BTW - I used Landau Top adhesive for all of this. You can see I wasn’t super-neat with glue because it’s not necessary. The whole thing gets covered in glue and foam anyway.
I then covered the whole thing with 1/8" foam.
For the headliner material covering, the wife of my friend (the owners of the car) did an amazing job of sewing them inside out like a pillow, leaving the top open as well as a small seam near the mirror (see pics) I made her a pattern by drawing around the plywood blank and then adding an 1/8" to account for the thickness of the foam and wood. So the pattern was an 1/8" larger than the plywood visor blank. She mentioned that she added a little more than that because it wasn’t quite enough - the pocket was too tight. I would say making the pattern 3/16" to 1/4" larger than the plywood would be better.
Before turning them inside-out and installing the covers onto the foamed visors I cut the material on the outside of the sewn seam as close to that seam as humanly possible without hitting the stitching. This will help it lie flat and look good at the seam when installed. No pic of that but very necessary.
Below you can see the extra seam area that was left open to allow the covers to slide on. On the other side the sewn seam stops at where the tube/bump starts because from there up it’s glued to the tube ends as per the original cover. Once the cover’s on you gotta blind-stitch it closed.
So with the covers slipped on I shot spray headliner glue inside. Can’t really do it before hand or they’ll be impossible to position. Where the tube/bump meets the flat visor I paid particular attention to the glue to be sure that the covering material followed the bump as well as possible.
The seam between the top and bottom of the cover is hidden behind the tube at the top in this pic. I just cut them precisely and glued them with the Landau glue. They could be stitched as well but I didn’t think it was necessary. Done and done.
