I need some fresh air

One thing I noticed shortly after I brought the 280Z home was that the driver and passenger fresh air vents did not function (only the center vents blew air).  I previously fixed the passenger side vent when I had that side of the dash apart for other reasons.  Since I had the speedometer and tachometer out for the LED bulb replacement, I thought now would be an opportune time to correct the driver side situation.

I knew the driver side ventilation was going to be interesting.  I had previously inspected the vent and found that I could see the rear dash through the vanes, confirming that there was no duct connected. In fact, the duct that was supposed to be connected to the vent was hanging (seemingly intentionally) under the steering column pointed at the floor.

When I began pulling the duct, I noticed that there was an elbow connected to the duct outlet; the passenger side had no such elbow.  Additionally, the elbow also had an integrated Tee, but there was nothing connected to the additional outlet.  This meant that air should have been blowing into the rear of the dash when the blower was operating.  Notice the words "should have" in the previous sentence...

After removing the elbow coupling I found that the driver side duct was blocked off entirely and intentionally with duct tape!  I pondered this for a moment, but I have no good possible explanation for this configuration.

Upon removing the duct tape, which left a nice reside that one would expect from duct tape of at least 20 years of age, I routed a new duct from the outlet to the vent.  I used some plastic zip-ties to position the duct out-of-the-way, along with some metal tape to ensure that the hanger doesn't wear through the duct.

You can see the factory green quite well in this picture.

I now have a functional fresh air vent on the driver side as well as passenger side of the cabin.