Putting A/C in a truck w/o A/C

[mp3deviant721]

I'm curious as to how this is done. I read this article: http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/June04/tech.htm. I was wondering if anybody has done something like this. How hard is it to do, about how much would it cost and is it worth it? I probably plan on keeping my truck for at least another few years down the road so I am intent on doing this.

 

[Angie]

I am sure it can be done. As I went the opposite way and ripped out AC from my truck when I placed the motor into it. ( I hate AC) I was lucky enough to have a parts truck that I was able to get all the proper air fan and connectors from to make it work. what you will need to do to cut down all the costs to a minimum is, look around your local area to see if you have a grab and pull, pick-apart auto wreckers in your area to get all the parts cheaper than buying new. (I am sure new would cost a pretty penny) If you have access to a parts truck ask them how much it will cost for all the pieces and start grabbing them. (take a camera with you and take pics before you rip stuff off to know where to attatch them as you replace.) The harder things to place in might be the AC cooler that goes in front of the rad, I had to leave that in the front of my rip out for I wasn't into pulling the grill off at the time. later this year i will take it out. my guess is that you will want to try and pull the full unit off in one piece as the lines could still be charged. take care there. I didn't care and hack sawed them off.

One other thing is that your wiring might be tricky, no idea here but you will also need to get the heater controls from inside the parts truck to make the switches work.

 

[mp3deviant721]

Here's what I'm getting from this, is that everything should be bolt in. But will I have to do any extra wiring or is it already there and that I just need to plug in the HVAC controls?

 

[Angie]

The wiring that I had to swap out was the plugs for the old truck with out the AC had to be swapped out of the heater fan box. there is a thermostat type unit there that needs to be wired in proper. the truck that had AC's plug needed to be the same. here is where I feel you might run into probs. a truck that came from factory might not have the extra wires to use the AC cooling system. I am just guessing here. however, the switching controls inside the truck (heater settings) will need to be replaced. You will need to do a bit more research on that. (not to mention the wireing harness that goes with the AC unit itself.)

yes every thing should be bolt in as far as I could venture to guess.

 

[wvcat]

I'm not sure on a 93 but I added air to a 98 and the wiring was there. I bolted in the compressor, condensor, evaporator and lines, swapped out the heater control and charged it up and the compressor kicked right in, I didn;t even have to add a fuse to the fuse box.

 

[mp3deviant721]

Well from what I figure there might be. I might have to find some wiring diagrams to see if there are. Thanks for the input guys.