Is the Air Vent Directional Tab Replaceable?

Having some spare time in-between work shifts, I thought I'd use a long nose plier to fix some of the fins etc. on my air vents. I fixed one which was just a case of the horizontal fin being popped back in the slot, but on my passenger side the little directional tab was missing and it was a little stiff to move.

With a closer inspection i found this wedged in the fins



Having looked at the other vents and taken it out it seems this controls the vertical fins left and right and has snapped off. With having no front side of the tab I was wondering can this little piece be clicked back on if I had the full tab or just that single fin? Or do I need this whole front part below?



Just wondered as I was not really wanting to buy a full vent but if I can do a quick fix then great.

Euan

Hi All,

Has anyone got the answer to Euan' question as I'm also missing the directional tabs on the drivers and passengers vents. The centre pair is fine. Are the tabs generic, i.e. if I had stairs from another centre vents, would they fit. How easy are they to remove.

Kind regards,

Tom

I had 2 missing. I don't know if they are repairable though. My solution was to buy a couple of vents and replace the control vane in situ. Saved ripping the whole lot out.

yes they are removable as aquired some chrome ones for my A2 , they conect together from behind so you have to remove the whole vent and take it apart to get at the securing clips ..



Ive higlighted the directional tab and its securing clip in this pic with one chrome one i modified and fitted as was a work in progress but not finished yet as adding iluminated air volume controls



the A2 tabs will be A2 specific parts i modified A3 & A6 ones to fit by filing off the teeth and lengthing the cutout to match the A2 ones

Hi Euan & Tom,

Jigsaw above beat me to attempting to answer your question.

As I spent ages trying to get decent pics I thought I would add my tuppenceworth anyway as it
may help other members now or in the future.

When I read your old post I had a side vent sat next to me from A2Steve waiting to be fitted
so I thought I would investigate.

First an explanation of how the rear vertical fins operate - not obvious from the front but clear
when viewed from the rear when out of the dash. The middle vertical fin is hollowed out in the centre
with front edge replaced by a round bar about 30mm long and 2.5mm diameter. This is the red arrow
part in the pic taken from the rear.



The part that Euan is holding and seen in Jigsaws's red circle connects to the front thumb tab
and its fingers sit astride the vertical bar as per green arrow.

Now when the thumb tab is used to move the front horizontal fins up and down the green arrow part
simply moves up and down the rod thus not changing the rear vertical fins.

Now when the thumb tab is moved sideways it pushes against the vertical bar to change the angle
of the central vertical rear fin. All other vertical rear fins follow suit because they are all linked by a bar
across the top of them - lilac arrow.

The thumb tab must be u-shaped to allow it to "grip" the front middle horizontal fin (with the "shoulder")
and locks the green part by the rib, clearly shown in Euans's pic, locking into the hole at the end of the thumb
tab seen in Jigsaws's pic -red circle. I bet there is one on the bottom as well. When all in place it looks like this.



The rib of the green part is pointed at by the orange arrow.

To finally answer Euan's question - if a thumb tab can be sourced to lock the green part, as per Jigsaws last sentence,
then the top frame (Euan's second pic) can be pushed back into place, taking care the fingers of the green part
are astride the vertical bar (red part) and everything will work.

Hope all this made sense but I feel I rambled at times.

Andy

Thanks all, I'm not sure how I missed this thread reopening. I replaced it ages ago but kept the parts as mentioned above to see if I could modify chrome tabs to it. ( which I haven't yet).

Euan

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