Background
When it comes to kids’ helmets, safety is the most important thing. One crucial feature that often goes unnoticed is the breakaway visor. The breakway pins play a vital role in protecting children from serious injuries during falls and accidents. By allowing the visor to detach easily, the breakway visor prevents rotational forces from being transferred to the child’s neck, reduces impact energy, avoids snagging hazards, maintains helmet integrity, and minimizes the risk of facial injuries. However, this means that the visors can be fragile.
The situation
My kiddo has a Wilder Jr helmet from Smith. It’s a great helmet! It fits well and looks great. However, while it was in my messenger bag the visor broke. The small plastic pins on the visor broke and now the visor can’t be installed. After using some tape on it for a couple of days, it was time to fix it properly.
Disclaimer: I am not a professional. This is for informational purposes only.
Do not repair a helmet that has been in an accident
Helmets are consumable goods. In an accident, the helmet protects the head by being crushed and deforming. Even in small crashes, the helmet may deform or crack and it may not be visible. Replace any helmet that has had an impact.
Repairing a visor with broken plastic pins
Most helmet visors attach to the helmet by using small screws with a threaded insert or small plastic pins. In kids helmets, small plastic pins seem to be the most common. These small pins are prone to breaking. In the photo below, you can see that the plastic pin from the visor has broken off inside the helmet. We’ll need to remove this from the helmet with some tweezers.
We need to replace the small plastic pins on the visor. We need to make sure that we replace these with plastic pins that will shear or allow the visor to tear off from the helmet in an accident. This will help prevent rotational injuries in an accident.
We’ll use plastic bumper rivets as a replacement. I looked through all the options at the local Oreilly Auto and picked the Dorman 963-638D Mitsubishi Bumper Retainer. They are about the right size and have a nice texture that will look good on the helmet. We will use only the inner part of the retainer - just pull it out of the outer ring and keep the inner pin.
We’ll clip any remaining pin from the visor side, and then drill a hole in it’s place. The hole should match the size of the pin. I really like cleaning up any holes in plastic with this little countersink bit that you can see in the background.
I glued the plastic pin into the visor. I’ve been using Starbond Super Glue on projects lately, and it’s really great for quick projects like this. The spray accelerator makes the glue cure instantly. It really speeds up projects like this.
Here’s an inside view of the helmet visor with the new pin glued into place.
The repaired helmet looks pretty good!
