Pic request please!- Removing center Vent

[cabear]

I've looked here, on bimmerfest, z-forum and have not yet found a clear concise way to remove the center vent. following some intrsuctions i found on roadfly.org i seemed to have messed up one of the little slats.

Help please!

[Santa Fe Roadster]

Check out the "how do you remove the vents to remove the stereo?" post in the "Navigation, Audio, Bluetooth, Stereo, Electronics Talk" forum. It has the closest thing to a picture that I have found, plus some helpful advice from REACH who recently removed the air vents you are referring to.

[BlackSapphireZ]

after you get em out...take them clips out. i assure you the vents won't fall out

[ROAD EAGLE]

Pics anyone?

[cabear]

woops forgot i made this thread. it took a lot of dong but i finally snaked the aux in cable through the lower access hole and into the back of the deck. i know i wouldnt have broken it but man that vent was feeling flimsy and i didn't wanna chip the aluminum surround. i also managed to fix the lil flap in the vent i broke so it all worked out.

[Reach]

Its pretty easy to get them out without damaging anything, and you'll need to if you ever want to remove the stereo.

Info copied from Bimmerfest:

[mPlasticDesign]

Nice Info, Thnx!

[Santa Fe Roadster]

REACH (or anyone else),

Did you use the BMW specialty tool 00 9 431 & 64 1 020?

Assuming that you did not have those tools, what did you use? A flat-head screw driver does not seem to work.

[BimmerZealot]

I used a flat head to get the clips down then inserted two thick cards (old credit cards / id cars / etc) in between the top of the vent and the dash until you get the card between the clips and the top of the dash. One card in each side and you can pull out the vent assembly. Its a pain to get the cards to go in you sort of have to go down and then in.

[Reach]

I just used a small flat-head and my hands, worked a treat. Just keep at it and you'll get it.

[Palantirion]

Great pics Reach

[ST Nathan]

This post is for people who will inevitably find this thread through Google, as I did, and be losing their minds because it seems utterly impossible to follow the instructions. Looking at those pictures up-thread, I couldn't figure out how it could be physically possible to insert a screwdriver, or anything else, from the front, and somehow make it bend up and around so it's over that clip, to pull it down.

Some people say it's easy - two minutes. My theory is that the metal clips in some cars, possibly due to age, temperature, who knows, protrude farther down into the holes in their resting state than in others. That might allow you to actually get a screwdriver over them. In my car though, it was impossible.

I finally did manage to get the vents out. First though, this demonstrates why there was no physical way to get a screwdriver over that tab at the front of the clip:



It's always going to come up under the clip, because the clip covers the hole. You'd have to come from directly below to have even a chance of getting past, and you can't because you need to go in from the front, through the vents.

After over an hour of fighting with it, what I eventually did was stick the screwdriver into the gap beside the clip, then twist to wrangle it down just enough:





... while gently, but firmly tugging the vents forward. I found a spoon handle on the inside edge gave me a better handle on it (pun intended) than a piece of plastic or something wedged in the outside:



Just be careful not to scratch the plastic. And yes, it's a complete PITA to twist just right to get the clip down while trying to pull the vents forward. But at least it can be done.

Once I got one side, the other came out very easily, using the same technique.

So there you go. Hopefully this will prevent a few people taking a claw hammer to their vents, as I felt pretty close to doing after an hour or so of fiddling with them, interspersed with reading forum threads about how easy it should be.

[inTgr8r]

Nice update.