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Just came across this as I was getting ready to replace my tattered original dash with a much better later one. The outboard vents are very nearly identical, but have slight differences, and I thought it might be worth documenting it. I've never seen it mentioned before. (I don't know if this applies to any S3s.) It's just a picayune little thing, but it might make a difference to somebody someday. (Shhh, don't tell the concours judges!)
In the first photo you'll see the most obvious difference is in the handle. The original '71 handle on the right is metal with a flattened round knob on the end. It's clipped to a separate square metal shaft that goes through a metal cam that the spring attaches to and on into the duct and through the flap to the top side where it's held in place with an E-clip. The later handle is plastic, and I believe it's all one piece, handle, cam, and round shaft. Instead of an E-clip there's a push nut on the other side. The cams are noted with the blue arrows. The thing that made me realize there were differences in the first place was when I was trying to fit my older vents into the newer dash and it wouldn't go in properly. It turns out the later vents have a notch, noted with the red arrow, that the earlier vents don't have. The hole in the dash has a tab that the notch fits to, preventing the duct from rotating. (That's a big problem, right?) So for me to fit the older vents to the newer dash, I'm going to have to either grind down the tab, or file a notch into the vent body. Yeah, I could put the newer vents in instead, but now that I know there's a difference, the plastic handles would bother me. The old-style metal handles fit the look of the '71 better.
Other than the differences I noted, I think the rest of the vent is identical.
In the first photo you'll see the most obvious difference is in the handle. The original '71 handle on the right is metal with a flattened round knob on the end. It's clipped to a separate square metal shaft that goes through a metal cam that the spring attaches to and on into the duct and through the flap to the top side where it's held in place with an E-clip. The later handle is plastic, and I believe it's all one piece, handle, cam, and round shaft. Instead of an E-clip there's a push nut on the other side. The cams are noted with the blue arrows. The thing that made me realize there were differences in the first place was when I was trying to fit my older vents into the newer dash and it wouldn't go in properly. It turns out the later vents have a notch, noted with the red arrow, that the earlier vents don't have. The hole in the dash has a tab that the notch fits to, preventing the duct from rotating. (That's a big problem, right?) So for me to fit the older vents to the newer dash, I'm going to have to either grind down the tab, or file a notch into the vent body. Yeah, I could put the newer vents in instead, but now that I know there's a difference, the plastic handles would bother me. The old-style metal handles fit the look of the '71 better.
Other than the differences I noted, I think the rest of the vent is identical.
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