General Boards > Redecorating and Updating your Motorhome

Valences: ideas wanted

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Edward Buker:
I added an MCD single power shade to my front windshield and made a wood trim piece (in my case cherry) to act as a valence. The whole MCD shade thing is a bit of a tricky modification for a windshield. The more vertical the windshield and curtain drop, the better it will work. I also used a little SC Johnson paste wax on my A pillar wood trim that i added to make the curtain work smoothly. A little patience on this project....

Later Ed

Keith Oliver:
Ed:

Thanks for the photos.  Looks like you have the same geography up front as I do.  My A pillars are going to be modified to give a flat surface for the blinds to slide down.  I have pulled tehm off and found that they are galvanized sheet metal, so can simply be bent to the right angle, maybe even without removing the Naugahyde.  thanks for the tip re waxing them.  Up top, your cherry valance looks good and encourages me to do something similar.

This afternoon I was aboard a 2014 Phaeton with MCD from the factory.  The valence treatment over the door interests me, but they have the cabinetry act as a forward valence, so not something I can copy.

Edward Buker:
My A pillars were galvanized metal and I handled them by pulling the covering and creating an angle board making the flat and using 3m contact spray adhesive to secure the Naugahyde back down. There was enough extra to rework it. We had some difficult issues to face with this install, driven by the sloping A pillars and the tight geometry. I decided that trying to do a dual shade was pretty impossible, but maybe your installer has some tricks. I found that the rod that is in the bottom of the shade would bow, due to not having a perfectly vertical A pillar. The slope puts a weight component from the shade on the rod. That bowing, along with the top to side configuration not being perfectly square, would have the rod on one side, come off of the A pillar while traveling down. I solved that by making some cherry moldings for the A pillar to provide a narrower opening between the A pillars. Now it is fine, but it took some reworking. This whole system really works best if you have a perfectly vertical A pillar. One other thing, we still carry a reflective foil interior windshield cover, and at times we unfold that and bring down the MCD shade, so the top of the foil shade will rest on the MCD rod. The MCD shade is good, but in extreme heat the foil reflector is still better. It is very nice to have the ability to lower the shade while driving and have a full width visor affect with no space for the sun to blast you when you have the dual shade arrangement. Photos of A pillar flat being created with a board. One with covering. One with molding detail and then one of the finished shade with the shade partially lowered. The valence is also a bit tricky.  It had to be at the right angle and planed quite thin, maybe 5/16ths if I remember, in order to have clearance for the existing curtain to pass by, if you are keeping those in place.

Later Ed

Edward Buker:
One last thought, if you bend the galvanized A pillar trim to obtain the flat you will no longer have the holes for remounting them line up. I used the wood wedges for that reason and drilled the A pillar trim and mounted the wood wedges with screws through the A pillar galvanized metal trim. After the wedges were secured with screws. I then recovered them with the Naugahyde and 3M contact adhesive passing the original covering over the wood wedges.

Later Ed

Richard And Babs Ames:
We are having blinds installed. Using the original valances with a spacer.

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