My driver's side vent left-to-right control didn't work since I got the car, so I decided to fix it. Turns out, the little arm that attaches to the "turning wheel" was detached. I drilled a hole in the turning wheel and strung the two pieces together with some wire. Now I can't get the vent back in the dash!

I originally took the trim piece off of the dash and when I did that, the vent popped into rather than out of the opening in the dash. I did all of the work with the vent assembly sitting inside of the dash.

What I've been trying to do is to pull the vent assembly back into the opening in the dash and then push the trim ring back onto the outside of the opening. Every time I push the trim piece back on, it makes the vent assembly pop back into the dash.

What am I missing here? Do I need to take the vent assembly all the way out and put the whole thing back in from the outside? Who has done this, and how did you make it work?

Thanks -

Alex

 

I guess nobody has any ideas?

 

only time i took these off was when i was gutting my dash in an old race car...

i popped it out towards me..... and it popped back in too.

hmmmm...... let me re-read your post... did you say you pushed it in?


EDIT: looks like thats what happened.

i say, take the dash out and try to pop it INTO the dash. or if you can somehow fish it OUT.


you coming up here for the COC meetthis weekend? or the H-T EF meet next month?


maybe some of us can look at it.

 

Yeah, I popped the trim ring out towards me, and it came out without a hitch - but when I did that, completely unintentionally, the vent assembly itself popped INTO the hole in the dash.

I see that there are two little metal spring clip type things on either side of the vent assembly. There are plastic surfaces that these are supposed to press outward on and clamp the whole thing to. I'm able to get a needlenose in there and compress the clips inward so that I can pull the vent assembly out to where it should be. Then I try to slide the trim ring back into place, and the vent assembly just pops back in again.

I'm gonna give it another shot today and see if I can't get the whole vent assembly out of the dash and try putting it all in from the outside.

Thanks for the help, Joe!

*EDIT* Oh yeah, can't make it to the COC meet - gonna be in Vegas. If I can't get it, the EF meet may be the perfect place to have some experts check it out!

Alex

 

Is it possible to get to the duct from under the dash? If so, have someone hold it in place as you snap the vent back in.

 

I would probably have to pull the dash out to do it that way, since the vent assembly is falling into the duct...

In other words, I would need to get into the duct to do it that way. I think if I can get the vent assembly out from inside of the dash, I should be able to make it work.

If nothing else, I will examine the one on the passenger side to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Alex