I'll preface this with the fact that I would normally take the dash apart and fix it the right way, but I'm in a pinch. My 560SEL is my winter car here in New England and I'm not getting any heat in the footwells. Can anyone point me in the direction of the flap so that I can just manually prop it open for my long drive with the wife and in-laws this Christmas until I can have the time to actually diagnose and fix it.

This will only work of course if there is heat reaching the center box of the CC system when heat is called for. The flaps are located on each side of the box where the carpet ends vertically, and between the center console and the firewall, on each side of the "transmission hump". I would also disconnect the vacuum actuator and plug the line to each flap.

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Don't Chrome them; polish them

Both the defrost and face vents work great and modulate. I am assuming that there is a broken vacuum line or actuator that I will tackle another day. Thanks for responding and I'll take the tip on capping the lines.

Check your auxiliary water pump to see if it is seized or unplug it. Sometimes a seized pump will cause the climate control to default to defrost only.