My A/C is just about due for a R134a conversion, so I've been resorting to rolling down the windows and opening the sunroof to cope in the meantime. However, I know that these cars also had floor air louvers that were used, in some cars, to compensate for the lack of an A/C.

My car is a 1989 with A/C, and it appears that the openings for the louvers (driver's and passenger's outside foot kick panels) have been covered over with a trim piece (I think this is the case for all later 240s). However, there's clearly a place where the louvers used to be able to be opened--I would imagine that Volvo didn't bother to change the underlying sheetmetal and instead simply put a plastic piece over the location of the louvers when they became unnecessary.

Is it possible to re-open these vents on the later cars? I'd love to have floor air louvers, since any way to get air moving in the car would relieve the heat. Just to clarify, my car never technically had "floor air louvers," I just looked at where they should be, though, and discovered a flat plastic piece where earlier cars had some sort of sliding mechanism.

Should I keep an eye for these on eBay, or might an old (pre-1986?) U.S.-spec car have them?
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'89 244 GL -- 122,500 miles (see profile for info on car)