Any 10 minute job is one broken bolt away from two days of hell. I’m not sure who originally made that observation, but there is a lot of truth to it.
The Imperial has an interesting AC design. There are two flip up vents in the middle of the top of the dashboard. When down they blow air on the windshield for defrosting. When pulled up they blow cold air on the driver and passenger. These vents, plus the floor vent, are responsible for distributing air from the AC.
Unfortunately the mechanism that holds the dash vents in the up position is worn. The driver vent will only stay up for a few minutes while driving. Then it falls down with a loud “clang”. The passenger vent doesn’t stay up at all.
With the AC somewhat working it becomes important for these vents to stay up. This is another one of the projects I’ve been putting off for years. Guess it is time to finally attack it…
Remove the mounting screws from the vent assembly, pull it out of the dash, and drag it over to the workbench for study.
The vent body fits closely into a cutout in the vent assembly. There are two roll pins that retain the vent and function as an axle for the vent to allow it to rotate up and down. Close examination shows that there are wave washers on each of the roll pins. These spring load the vent body and provide resistance to hold the vent body up – when new.
At some point over the last 60 years these weakened. Perhaps wear in the washer or the vent body. Perhaps the spring became less springy over time. In any case something needed to be done to increase the friction between the vent body and the vent assembly.
Something… Something like flexible washers 3D printed out of flexible TPU in exactly the needed thickness. Well, these are easy enough to design!
With a plan of attack it’s time to get going on this project!
To be continued…