Thanks for the comments and continued interest guys.
Again to my surprise, the new legend/switch ID plate for the exhaust cutouts arrived today, a day early. It was quickly installed and one of the red bat handles cut down to fit. This makes it much easier to find in the dark should I need to close them quickly:
So rather than sitting around waiting for parts, I thought I’d go ahead and get started on the heater/defroster connection. The problem being the defrost diverter must go away as it takes up the space the right side of the evaporator will occupy:
It is being relocated above the evaporator, between the wiper motor and the ash tray rack. The entrance to the diverter is being blocked with a metal plate, and will mount a hose nipple for connection to the front of the heater. The heater outlet sits about 2” away from the side of the evaporator, so that is also being blocked, and heated air will exit out the front for heater and connect to the defrost diverter with flexible heater hose:
I’ll have to go pick up some ABS parts to hook all this together once I get the metal plates formed and fitted.
The saga continues!
I almost forgot, I also moved the driver side courtesy light to the left end of the dash above the emergency brake. This is the new light pattern. The dome light lights up the center of the floor, and the floor lights highlight the kick panels and corners:
