(G) Heater vent removal - advice please...

I'm planning to try & fit gauges into the heater vents that are at the top left & top right of the dash but I need to be able to get them out without breaking them & can't work out how.

I managed fine with my central heater vent & fitted a voltmeter & water temp' gauge, now I want to fit oil pressure & temp'. Having looked at the way the vents are arranged I think that if I block off the 2 side hand-warmers (which I never use) then the flow over the screen will be slightly better as the left & right vents have a permanently open part.

the whole surround bit just pops out. put a bit of pressure on it but be carefull.

I was wondering if anybody knew which side the bit was on that sticks out to retain the vent & if it is possible to use a screwdriver to depress it?

I know if I pull on it enough it'll come out but I hope to re-use it for holding the gauge.

We're talking Sei, right? The whole centre vent thing pops out. There are 4 little clips, 2 top, 2 bottom about 2" in from the sides. But these are so far in, I doubt you'll get a screwdriver to them. They're maybe 3/4" in.

I think last time I removed one I used a broad screwdriver and gently levered it out, nothing more.

The trick, of course, to mounting guages in the Sei vents is to make sure they don't point up towards the roof!

Fingers, as I said at the beginning I'm actually trying with the 2 nearest to the doors in the top corners of the dash in a Sei, if I remember rightly the central one comes out most smoothly if you take off the control panel below it first to gain access to its retaining springy plastic bit (or was it from the top via the rev counter) but I can't see where the retaining springy bit is on the ones I've described though. I think I'm gonna' try getting the ones out of a scrappy car first 'cos I don't want to have them become rattly & have them need glueing back in.

pull the whole vent out. it helps if you put a finger into the little hole near the top of the vent. dont use screw drivers or anything like that because you will damadge it. it will be tight but seriously just pull. then when you have the main vent surround out push the center swivel bit out from the back by pushing with one thumb each side. you will find it will pop out. trust me ive done mine several times

Cheers guys, I think my best plan is still to go for the scrappy option 'cos if I get them really cheap @ least I can keep the originals intact for when I sell the car on & work making them into a holder while the original vents are still in place.

Thanks anyway & I'll keep people posted as to how successful I am 'cos I'm still not certain I'll manage to actually fit a gauge in them depth-wise.

Well the ideas above are good just prize it out carefully .. a scrappy will get you the sdurrounds but you still have to get the urronds so you will end up with a perfectly good vent and surround and ... a surrond :S i dont see the point ?! the ideas above will help you lol

When I fitted the central vent I was quite glad I used a spare to do the butchery & glueing on over the course of a few days without having to drive around with bits missing from the car.

Andre, you seemed to have grasped my point without realising it ;-p I think I explained above that I was quite keen on the idea of having a perfectly good vent & surround left spare at the end once I've butchered one so I can swap back if I'm not happy with the results or when I sell the car on.

As for my original question - at least I know that nobody seems to know a better way than simply pulling hard enough. I know for a fact that if you do that to the central vent the retaining clips can break so I wanted to avoid that mistake.

Original question was hoping for some kind of awe inspiring reply such as - "yep if you poke a screwdriver through the bottom vent there's a clip you can depress" or "there's a screw you have missed spotting that holds it all in".

Thanks for trying to help though folks, particularly Sei_rory for reading my post & genuinely trying to help.

Great post, was going to ask the same thing as im going to put my temp gauge in the drivers side vent.

I should be getting hold of a spare one to work on tomorrow evening so I'll post on here when I know for sure if I can fit a RaidHP gauge in there.

I can confirm that if you trim away some plastic from inside the vents then a RaidHP 52mm Gauge will fit.

It turned out to be a good idea that I bought scrappy spares to work on at £8 for the pair, as half way through cutting away the vent to fit my dremmel broke :-(

Not so bad 'cos at the moment I'm still trying to work out a way to finish the gaps around the fronts of the vents so that they look remotely like a factory fit - will supply photos later.

Smiler get one of those hole cutters from B @ Q and take out that bit of the dash not required. Don't make the hole to big as a tight fit is essential. I did my mates and had to squirt some of that expandable foam in to take up the slack. Make sure that the oil feed pipe into the pressure gauge is in properly because when I did my mates the pipe come out the back of the gauge at full revs and covered everthing in engine oil. I like a challenge, if I lived near to you I'd have a bash at it for you

Thanks Chino, the oil pressure & temperature gauges take their reading from sensors which screw into a sandwich plate that screws into the spot where the oil filter goes & then you fit the filter on after.

I'll take a couple of pix of the gauge holding assembly I'm making later on today if I get chance & you'll see what I mean. I'm basically at a crossraods trying to decide how I want them to look & what I'm gonna' use - I want a reasonably factory-grade finish. In the pic above my black sticky back plastic worked OK because it was on a flat surface, but I'd like to round off the gaps to be smooth with the rest of the dash. Doing so will leave a curved surface that won't take the sticky back plastic very well :-(

Pix to follow.