ARGH! Broken Air Vents

[itsnotanova]

I come across a lot of them that just need to be snapped back on. Sometimes you get lucky and can fix them without taking them completely apart. As for the center vent being loose, There's a small square rubber piece that the vents rub up against and keeps tension on them. That rubber piece either shrinks or gets worn down over time. I put a shim behind it on mine and it fixed the problem of them flopping down. You'll have take the center vent apart to repair them though.

[ArizonaDan]

@Tommy...if you're ok with the vent being set in one basic place, I just rolled the vent downwards and stuck a small piece of weatherstripping (about 1/8" thick) on the top edge and then rotated the vent back up...squeezing the weatherstripping down so the vent rolls back inside the housing.....it won't fall down anymore.....

[tommy583]

Originally Posted by ArizonaDan

@Tommy...if you're ok with the vent being set in one basic place, I just rolled the vent downwards and stuck a small piece of weatherstripping (about 1/8" thick) on the top edge and then rotated the vent back up...squeezing the weatherstripping down so the vent rolls back inside the housing.....it won't fall down anymore.....

Good idea, I think i'll try that tonight. I have had that vent out of the dash many times over the years, but always forgot to try and fix it while it was out.

[aczyzewski]

Here are my notes and photos from pulling the driver's side vent in order to pop the fins and slider back into place. Start by pulling the unit as is described elsewhere, as if you are accessing the headlamp switch. I went ahead and disconnected everything so I could wrestle with opening it up. The only difficult part is in separating the internals from the housing. There are four tabs that hold it together and mine were a real bear to get apart. One side was no problem, the other was tricky and hard to get the tabs to budge. In the end, I think it was more force than anything that got it apart. Once that's done, the rest is easy. The horizontal fins are even numbered so you know the order they sit. The vertical slider simply snaps into each fin.

Yellow arrow shows vertical slider. Green arrows show tabs.


This is what popped out of place, along with a couple of horizontal fins.


In this photo, yellow arrows show the 4 tabs.


Detail of the tabs. They are not very flexible, hence the problem popping them out.


Side view of body.


Showing the fins that had popped out.

[Zibodo]

I have the same problem on my 98- the little connector is missing on the driver side vent and each louver moves independently. I bought what I thought was the right replacement vent assembly on Ebay, but it came with a smooth finish and my original has a sort of pebbly finish. So I have taken the little connector bar out of the Ebay vent and would like to use it to repair my original vent.

After struggling for a couple of hours to install the connector bar through the back of the assembled vent I just could not get it. Now I would like to disassemble the vent as shown in this last post so I can get direct access to the louvers. As described here it is very difficult to disassemble. I have separated the exposed outer two tabs, but the two tabs that are buried under the flap mechanism just won't budge. I am afraid to apply too much force because I have a history of breaking parts.

Has anyone else had experience with this and is there a recommendation or trick to separate the two inner tabs?