Hi, I tried to do a search on this, but the search function seems to be not working correctly at the moment. I'm hoping that I'm not the first person to have run across this problem. I have a 2001 F250 Platinum Edition. This truck came from the factory with a large plastic sun visor that sticks out over the top of the roof over the windshield. It has flush clearance lights built into it.

Over a period of time, I've been worried that the visor mounts are weakening. In wind gusts, the visor will visibly vibrate and I hear loud pops ands creaks from it. It finally got so bad that this weekend I decided I would just remove it and see what is under it. I managed to get it off yesterday. It was held on by 8 bolts that screw into captive nuts in a metal bracket that is spot welded to the roof. Two of the captive nuts had completely pulled out of the metal bracket and a third cative nut was stripped. The metal of the mount for the two captive nuts that pulled free was cracked and they had literally pulled out of the bracket damaging the bracket in the process. Hence the vibration and movement I was getting in gusty winds. I'm lucky the visor hadn't flown off already.

Now that I have the visor off, I'm left with an ugly metal bracket spot welded to my roof, a bunch of screw holes in the roof, and a pigtail of wire (for the clearance lights) sticking out of a hole in the center. The way I see it, I have two options: 1) repair the mounts and reinstall the visor, or 2) leave it off and figure out what it'll take to remove the metal mounting bracket (which will involve body work and paint to the roof). If I reinstall the visor, at a minimum, I'll need to have the cracked/damaged mounting points welded and repaired. There are also a number of stress cracks in the visor itself but I'm not sure how big of a problem they are, structurally speaking.

Any "been there done thats" that can give me some guidance or advice? I've never liked having the visor on there anyway and personally wondered what the heck Ford was thinking for adding it. It obvisously affects aerodynamics at speed, especially driving into a gusty headwind. But I do prefer having clearance lights and the flush style lights look good. If I leave the visor off, I won't be happy with the truck unless I can remove the metal mounting bracket that is left behind. But I'm not sure it's worth the money that the body work would cost. And if it wasn't bad enough, now with the visor missing but the metal mounts still on the roof, it is whistling loudly at highway speeds!

 

I do like the Platinum trucks. I wish I would have seen one when I bought my truck. I think I would keep the visor on, because that was part of it being a Platinum. I like the paint also.

 

If I were you, I would repair those mounts and put the visor back on. I think that the paint and body work for removing them would cost more than just getting the mounts repaired and putting the visor back on.

 

I would clean the top up do the body work and put some regular cab lights on. It will look alot better since you already have the thing off. IMHO

 

I'm with Justin on this. Clean it up and put some cab lights on it

 

This is what I would do as well. But not knowing what your roof looks like now, it would certainly be cheaper to repair the mounting parts of the visor (at least what it seems like from reading).

 

The cheapest solution is to just repair the existing mounts and reinstall the visor (maybe beef up the mounts to prevent future problems). Removing the mounting bracket from the roof would definitely be more costly as it would involve cutting/grinding the bracket off and then body work to fill the holes and smooth out the roof where the bracket was welded. Then of course, paint work for the roof to cover all of this work up. And if I put new clearance lights on it, there will be that installation (new holes to drill and wiring).

I think before I decide, I'll need to take the truck to a body man and get an estimate on the work to remove the bracket and paint it. That'll help make the decision for me. Of all the stuff I can throw money at right now, I have to decide if removing the visor is a priority. One thing is for sure, I'm not willing to leave it halfway as it sits right now. With the mounting bracket still on it, it looks like a bald guy that got hair plugs.

Thanks for the input. I guess what I'm really looking for at this point is someone who has done the full removal before that can detail what they had to do.

 

That will be your best bet. Then once you get the price you can see if you would rather leave it on or take it off.

 

I wish the OP would have posted what he finally did. I'm in the same situation. My visor is on it last legs. I have the stupid bracket welded and holes in roof. I was trying to see if a new drop visor or light bar would cover stuff up. Any one out there ever deal this and have a good fix. Of course the last option is the body work and roof repaint.

 

Does it leak?
What year is yours?

 

There are three model editions where Ford installed those lighted exterior sun visors on 2000-2002 Super Duties:

• Lariat LE (available nationwide)
• Platinum (generally sold only in Texas and surrounding states during that era. In later years, the Platinum edition became nationwide, but in 2000-2002, is was quite elusive, except in Texas)
• The F-650 SuperCrewZer

I remember wanting one of those visors, only because of how the cab lights were so elegantly integrated into the visor's smooth contours. But the problem with the visors was obvious, compared to all other similar visors ever made before or since, including the original visor designed by Charles E. Lund, the founder of Lund, which later combined with DeeZee, another visor maker.

The problem? The Ford OEM visor has NO AIR relief VENTS!

Thus, it is exposed to a tremendous amount of frontal wind forces, as well as upward forces and eddy currents sheeting off the windshield. The aftermarket visors on pickups and semi's alike have air vents that relieve the pressure built up under the visor, allowing it to escape over the cab. Sadly, the beautiful looking Ford visor does not. That is probably one of the reasons why the Ford visor looks more attractive than the aftermarket visors.

Yet, that attractive styling comes at the cost of wear and tear on the roof and the visor itself. Other costs are increased wind and vibration noise and flutter. The non vented Ford visor also can, at least in theory, reduce fuel economy, although by how much would have to be tested rather than assumed.

I think if it were mine, I'd get an estimate from a fiberglass fabricator to see if the OE Ford visor could be sectioned open in two places, between the perimeter and central cab light clusters, and with those open sections removed, have the open gaps between the top and bottom surfaces of the visor closed off again and fiberglassed over... perhaps in some slanted aerodynamic shape that conforms to the windshield angle and yet still loops around to fully conceal the mounting bar on the roof.

If the estimate for that creative fiberglass work were within $500 of the estimate for removing the tack welded metal bar, nutserts, punching new holes for regular cablights, new wiring harness for individual cablights, metal finishing, and two stage paint to cover up the mess... then I'd probably go for re incorporating the Ford visor, but only if modified with air pressure relief vents through it's wing.

 

I have a 2000 F350 Lariat LE. I think if the keeps giving me problems I'm going to go the bracket removal route. I'm still holding out hope that a new low profile drop visor or cool light bar might block the bracket and make it looks some what presentable.

 

Please create your own new thread about this.
The OP has his last post here about 7 years ago. It looks like he did 13 posts over several years, never was very active.
Too many (past) posters leave us hanging when their problem is resolved...or they loose interest.
BTW I tend to keep things as original as is reasonable.

 

I do too. But with this particular OEM item, doing so presents somewhat of a risk. Over the years, I've read of several reports of those OE visors blowing off on the highway. Search the archives on PSN and TDS if interested.

I paid attention to any posts about this OEM visor, because for a while I was sort of interested in adding one... that is, until I read about the problems. I also noticed that over the 18 production years of the early 99 to 2016 Super Duty, the regular cab lights remained unchanged, but this problematic visor was discontinued very early on (by 2002). That kind of says something.

 

Continue to look into an improved version. As I stated, as is reasonable.
Start a new thread.