Stuck Sun Visors

[SilentRon]

My Wagonaire came to me with "stuck" sun visors. The arms move freely so the visors can be moved from the windshield to the side window; however, the (cardboard?) visors are stuck on their arms, rendering them useless to the blinding sun.

I contacted a Studebaker interior vendor, and their suggestion was to use a "non silicone vinyl protectant lubricant." Anyone have any additional thoughts/suggestions on this or where I can purchase the suggested lubricant?

Respectfully,
SilentRon

[JDP]

My Wagonaire came to me with "stuck" sun visors. The arms move freely so the visors can be moved from the windshield to the side window; however, the (cardboard?) visors are stuck on their arms, rendering them useless to the blinding sun.

I contacted a Studebaker interior vendor, and their suggestion was to use a "non silicone vinyl protectant lubricant." Anyone have any additional thoughts/suggestions on this or where I can purchase the suggested lubricant?

Respectfully,
SilentRon

Meguiars and others make a silicon free vinyl dressing, but regular Armor all would not hurt for a single application.

[rockne10]

Understand, the fit of the sleeve on that rod is VERY tight. It has to be to keep the visor from flopping down without intention. Allow your lubricant a lot of time to penetrate that nearly zero clearance surface. Work it back and forth gently so you don't rend the tube from the panel it's attached to.
Once you have it movable, you may want to continue soaking it and, eventually, try to extract the rod from the tube. Clean the rod well with fine steel wool and re-insert with no lubricant. The friction of that tight fit is the only thing that keeps it up when you want it up. Did I really just say that?

[(S)]

The originals were lubed with some sort of bees wax or thick substance. On brand new ones, it helps to just use some WD 40 and let it run inside. On original ones I use the same thing. The fit on these is so tight, don't worry about them being too loose.

[nvonada]

+1 for WD-40. I dribbled it in a little at a time so as not to soak the cardboard. Most went into the tube and evenutally they freed up. It did take several days of dripping it in every time I walked past them.

Nathan

[N8N]

when trying to visualize what to do to the sun visors, it helps if you've seen one with no upholstery on it so you can evaluate how to attack it. The padded ones have a metal bit into which the rod fits, and as rockne10 says it is intentionally a somewhat tight fit. The rest of the visor is made of some kind of board that's somewhere between door panel board and Masonite in terms of heaviness and stiffness, so if you have to force it to turn, it's best to use pliers padded with a shop rag close to the rod, don't just grab ahold of the visor and try to turn it or you run the risk of breaking the structural bit. The non-padded ones are even flimsier, they're essentially the same stuff as the kick panels as far as I can tell.

I'd try not to get any solvent or lubricant on the "board" part of the visor so as not to make it any weaker than it already is.

nate