'96 420SEL: No Heat To Floor

[Randy]

Hi, I finally got around to diagnosis of my motor carriage: the heat works fine but the air all comes out the side vents and defroster vents. I removed the tunnel coverings, radio, etc., and checked the vacuum pod, and it held, and checked for vacuum at the appropriate port on the vacuum control stack; it too was right. I noticed that the flap on the passenger side does not seem to have a solid connection to the little gear on top that moves it using the vacuum motor linkage. The linkage from the vacuum pod to both sides seems to all be intact, so it looks like the shaft for each air control flap is loose from the flap shaft or maybe the gear is broken loose. The manual does not seem to offer much information for this. Has anyone fixed this? I thought of just tying both flaps open for the winter, but I'd rather do a little better job of it.