[3250man]

You gotta' be kidding me! I was moving the driver's sun visor back into place in front of me and as I put the visor into the plastic holder/clip (whatever it's called), the bottom piece of the clip broke off - took a two-hopper across the dash - right into the defroster vent at the windshield. It appeared to happened in slow motion but really so fast I couldn't catch it before it went down into the vent. I can't feel the piece to fish it out, looking from the outside, I can't see it. It doesn't rattle in there when the defroster's on and I tried to suck it out with my industrial strength vacuum and the defroster on HI. NOPE.

Has anyone retrieved anything from that defroster vent? Is there a way to get to that vent without removing the entire dash? (2016 Colorado Z71 4X4)
My dealership parts guy is ordering me both driver and passenger clips (after he got done getting a laugh at my story) and the driver's side clip is on them. I got the passenger side part because I don't want the same thing to happen on that side.
Has anyone replace those sun visor clips/holders? I don't want to mangle the headliner just to get that piece changed.
I'm all ears and eyes . . .

 

[DargelJohn]

Piece of chewing gum on a coat hanger? Probably wind up with gum in the vent. :frown2:

I'll have to check mine and see how fragile it is.

 

[JBT]

You have the special honor of being the first person to post this one. I hate that slow motion fail, and watching something go down a drain. Or, in this case, a defrost vent. If the gum falls off the coat hanger, that would really suck. :surprise:

 

[pltctycanyon]

could you make a video of it? j/k

take some duct tape or similar, use a mirror or look thru the windscreen from outside to see where its at. i'm guessing there's some type of screen or baffle to keep things from falling deep into the vents

 

[3250man]

I had that same line of thinking. I might try one of those small flexible rubber/metal camping ties, use some Gorilla tape (sticky side out) and see if I can latch on to it that way. It does appear there is some sort of mesh in the vent, but not sure if the piece slipped through that. Still trying to figure how to get the rest of the clip out of the headliner. YouTube's no help, they show the ones in earlier twins with a screw in it. Probably something simple.

 

[wildwest450]

If it's not rattling, leave it be.

 

[CaryBosse]

If it's not rattling, leave it be.

Time you get that piece of plastic out, you will have scratched a couple of pieces of the dash, and probably created a dozen rattles.

 

[3250man]

Sun visor supports

Finally received the sun visor supports from the dealer. Back-ordered.
Looks like a pretty straight forward change. Gonna' change both.
Wasn't able to fish out the broken piece in the defroster vent, so I'll just leave it be.


P.S. They're about $20+ each on Ebay or GM PartsDirect.

 

[3250man]

"Looks like a pretty straight forward change." Famous last works - this swap out was anything but straight forward. Maybe for some, but not me and my big mitts.
Easy to pry the small tab out of the way and get to the Torx screw - but words of caution: Don't try and pull the assembly down through the headliner! There's a metal friction clip that holds that retainer assembly in place on top of the headliner and if you pull too hard, you'll pull it though the headliner and have a gaping hole there. It's possible to reach up on top of the headliner and use a small flat tip screwdriver o remove that metal clip, but it was a bit too tight for me to try and work the assembly free and not rip the headliner. I had to use Vise grips and secure the assembly front part (toward the engine) and gently pull down. At the same time, I pushed up on the headliner from underneath on the front part and slowly pulled the broken part down and free of the metal clip. Had a heck of a time getting the clip slid onto the new sun visor assembly but I got both changed. Good luck . . .

 

[JBT]

Sounds like a pain in the ass.

 

[Carlmyman]

You can try a shop vac with a piece of clear tubing duct taped to the nozzle. You won't scratch anything & you will have a small vacuum that you can swish all around until you catch your fish. I use this gizmo all the time to clean the fridge coils that are always too tight to get anything else between when I'm hunting dust bunnies. Use a couple of foot of tubing so you can leave the vac outside the truck & put a little hole in the duct tape so you don't choke the vac too bad.
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