There are 2 ways to replace damaged vent fins..... spend all weekend stripping and then replacing the dashboard to change the vent assembly.... or by doing it the following way which takes about 20 minutes
On the last fb I had which had damaged fins, I managed to get hold of a good second hand vent assembly and then thought long and hard about how I could fit it without stripping the dash.
It occurred to me that if I could strip the fins from the rest of the vent assembly, I may be able to carefully insert them into my existing vent rockers without dismantling anything.
This is how I did it.
First thing to do is get a good vent assembly...
On the rear of the complete vent assembly is a screw and plastic strip which holds the rockers into the housing
Remove this screw and the rockers will come out of the housing
The fins are mounted to a thin plastic frame which clips into the back of the vent rocker. This frame locates with small plastic tabs on each side, seen here ( the 2 small square holes...
I pressed the tabs in to release the frame and removed the frame and fins from the rocker...
These small assembles were missing completely from my vent rockers. If you are just replacing damaged fins you will need to prise your old frames out of the rockers from the front using a small flatblade screwdriver.
I then folded the fins as flat as they would go towards their frame
The whole fin / frame assembly was then inserted through the vent rockers by lying it flatways and pushed into the void behind the rockers...
This gave it enough space to rotate it into a vertical ( the correct) position and all I needed to do then was to pull it forward until the frame located and clicked into position on the back of the rocker.
To pull it forward I used an allen key poked through the fins onto the thin plastic frame.
Easy!!!
The alternative is to nearly totally strip the dash.
It's somewhat difficult to explain exactly the sequence of events but hopefully anyone attempting this can work out what to do from this post.
When I got my new vent assembly, it was kindly donated by Keith from his old RX7 but was still in the car and we had to remove it. It took about 2 hours and most of the dash and centre console had to be removed. Having looked at the vent assembly since, I’ve found that the quick and easy way to get the rockers out without stripping the dash is to push a hacksaw blade into the assembly between the rocker and main outer assembly body and cut through the pivots on each side of the rocker. The rocker can then be pulled out of the dash and the fins removed.
So all I need to do now is find some fins. Thanks once again Ian 