1994 LS400 L&R side interior Air Vent Replacement - Help!

[pacolet]

I have a 94 LS400 that I dearly love.  Somehow both my adjustable l & r side air vents that supply air to passenger and driver have been damaged.  I suspect my grandkids might have done this unknowingly by either pushing or kicking them.  Hard to imagine this just happened.  It looks like a bear to fix but I have purchased some good used air louvres from Ebay.  Am I going to have to remove the entire dash to install them?  If so, any instructions on how to do this as simply as possible.

[sha4000]

I never heard of anyone removing these vents so info is probably scarce. Does there look to be any clips on the inside of the vent that you need to push in to remove them?

[pacolet]

The front louvre that adjust up/down and left/right can be unclipped but the open /close in the rear portion of the control I believe is screwed in from the rear portion of the dash.  I tried carefully to unpry any clips all around the cover and could detect none, it was very tightly secured.  It really bugs me that they designed such a part not to be accessible/replacable from the front.  Really idiotic engineering, but if I'm mistaken I'll be happy to apologize to the designers.  

 

[Exhaustgases]

Most likely it was a trade off doing them like that. Since there are a lot of snap together interior parts. In the manual it shows that register bolting to the rear of the instrument panel. And since the information is in the heat and ac section and since all the work done in that area requires removal of the instrument panel??? I didn't see anything specific to the register. I'm sure to clear the ducting and remove it from the behind side of the instrument panel said panel likely comes out. And if the panel comes out it is then time to take care of the evaporator and heater core. Heater core I'd find a top notch radiator place to check it out or rebuild it. Not idiotic if there is no other real good way to secure it, there maybe too many things in the way to do a snap in. And besides they are allowed to be stupid sometimes like the starter.

[pacolet]

Trade off in their favor.  I hate to ask what all is involved in getting the dash out!  I may just glue the sucker in place in a good blowing angle and only have up and down louvre possible to adjust.  Not a happy camper...

[Exhaustgases]

If the car has a salvage title, and full of dents and the interior is trashed, and the car used to be a low rider that had its belly worn through then yeah trash it more.

But if its in super good shape don't  mess it up. For people like me "picky" when I look at a car to buy, any thing that's messed up about it I will pass, and I'm sure theres lots like me. Just look at the top shape old cars that sell on ebay for thousands more than blue book. In the " in the know car world" factory original is king.