Skylight Shade Broke

[jbh30319]

OK - Take 2...

After rereading the previous posts - I think I do see the culprit (photo attached). The plastic housing was cracked (likely from the shade being pulled too hard in the first place) so now the metal rod, that needs to be stationary for the shade to retract, is not being held in place.

Will see if I can fix it.

[jbh30319]

OK it looks like it's helpful to use a pair of pliers to hold the metal rod extending from the shade while winding it. It looks like it still has tension in it.

I'm also using super glue to reaffix the piece of the housing that cracked and fell off.

We'll see if all of this works....

[jbh30319]

I allowed the glue a little over an hour to dry. And then held the tension rod (for lack of a better term) that the shade is wrapped around in place while I rotated the shade to build tension (exactly how the shades that they used to pu t in houses work).

It looks like the plastic being broken was causing the problem. The rod needs to be held in place in a slot -- and when the housing was cracked, that slot was no longer able to hold the tension rod.

I have it installed back in my Jeep now, and the sunshade is opening and closing just fine. Still, I intend to be very careful with it -- if I even open it at all -- because of the repair and because it was vulnerable to breaking in the first place.

Moral of the story: If you are going to allow your drunk adult friends to ride in the backseat, make sure that the sunshades are retracted so they don't get any crazy ideas ....

[Teddyyo]

How the hell do I get this damn thing off the headliner? I can't find the clips or whatever holding it, and I've damn well near broken it in half trying to get it off at all. Can anybody point me in the right direction with this POS?

Edit: Finally got it off by literally hanging on it. Chalk this one up to the "dumbest designs ever" list on our Commanders.

[jeep5253]

Originally Posted by jbh30319

I allowed the glue a little over an hour to dry. And then held the tension rod (for lack of a better term) that the shade is wrapped around in place while I rotated the shade to build tension (exactly how the shades that they used to pu t in houses work).

It looks like the plastic being broken was causing the problem. The rod needs to be held in place in a slot -- and when the housing was cracked, that slot was no longer able to hold the tension rod.

I have it installed back in my Jeep now, and the sunshade is opening and closing just fine. Still, I intend to be very careful with it -- if I even open it at all -- because of the repair and because it was vulnerable to breaking in the first place.

Moral of the story: If you are going to allow your drunk adult friends to ride in the backseat, make sure that the sunshades are retracted so they don't get any crazy ideas ....

Great job ! Thanks for the write-up and pics.

[Teddyyo]

Small plastic piece is broken and MIA here. Used Hondabond to just bond the (tensioned-up) rod to the remaining cheap plastic, since I had no superglue. Have it clamped, and will put a nice layer of liquid rubber on the damn thing in the morning.

Should this fail, I'll say "screw it" and find a replacement part....and hope the next cheap plastic part doesn't break on me. So far? Mirror clips, door handle surrounds (all 4) and now this. I am really starting to doubt this otherwise wonderful vehicle

It's not doing the work that bothers me....it's the ridiculous design flaws - the feeling that this sort of work really ought not to have to be done on a car built in the 21st century.