My wife and I bought a 1995 Jeep Cherokee XJ mostly for camping and road trips. It was only $3,100 and is an automatic so she can drive it (for some reason, she doesn’t want to learn to drive a manual?!). Cosmetically, it’s in pretty good shape except the inside looks really worn. The headliner is sagging and the visors were all torn up. I went ahead and replaced the headliner and decided to repair the visors too.
Gross and ripped old sun visor
Sources:
OutJeeping’s How To Wrap Custom Sunvisor
BleepinJeep’s How-To Custom Sun Visor
Materials:
New cloth. I used headliner material with a foam backing from Joann Fabrics. You can use whatever you want but something thicker like felt will probably hold up better than normal cloth.
DAP Weldwood Contact Cement. You can also use spray adhesive, but I’ve found that this stuff holds much better longterm.
Phillips and flathead screwdrivers.
Removal and Disassembly:
Use a Phillip’s head screwdriver and remove the first screw
Move the visor down and take out the other two screws
Use a flathead screwdriver and pry apart the two halves at the seam
Pull the pin out on the end. For my 1995 XJ, I had to do this before pulling the two halves completely apart. It looks like some years you can leave this in place
Continue prying around
Once open, carefully remove the hardware
Make a note of where the metal tab goes into the plastic for reassembly
It should now open up completely and you can start pulling the headliner material off
Repair:
The ends of the visor have a live hinge that flexes so it fits against the roof in the up position. On the driver’s side mine had snapped and was only held together by the headliner material. The fix I used seems to hold pretty well but if you are using spray contact adhesive, it may not hold as well over the longterm.
Since the ears on the end had snapped their live hinges, I used two strips of the new headliner material and contact cement to reattach them
I applied a thin coat on all the surfaces, let it dry for about ten minutes, lined it up and pressed them together. This stuff smells so use it outside. Your brain will thank you!
After, the outside looks pretty normal
With both sides done from inside
With both sides done from outside
New Material and Install
To cut out the new material, I laid the old on top and traced it out with a sharpie
Then I cut it out with some sharp scissors
And lined it up. Notice that all the tabs have their own cutout on the pattern
I used the same contact cement around the perimeter and on the edges of the new material. You only need a very light coat since the clamshell has small plastic spikes to hold the material in place once you close it
After it has set for a few minutes, line up the hardware
And snap it back into its groove
This should be what it looks like when finished and you can snap the two halves back together working your way around the edges
Next you can slide the pin back in
And screw the visor back in!
The only downside is that I can’t put my warning stickers back on. Sure hope I remember how to buckle up!
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