i have 2 79 super cab trucks one has factory ac (my parts donor) and the other does not. how hard would it be to switch the ac dash and componets over to the non ac cab?

 

Its been done many times, and covered half as many times here in the forum. I recommend doing a search, you probably can answer your own question with what you find.

From what I remember about that... Yes the swap is doable, you have the right idea having the entire donor truck. Extensive firewall modifications are needed. Strip both cabs, measure twice, cut once.

 

not hard at all, just time consuming. cut big hole, cut big hole carefully...

 

sounds like it would be more of a job than i want to get intobeings as my project truck is my daily driver for the time being. not to mention my shop is my driveway

 

Time for a $500 beater. Unless your fuel is free, you will save lots of money driving a car or a mini truck.

 

well right now i drive a dumptruck and work is pretty slow being winter and all so a $500 beater is not really feasible at this time. my daily driver isnt really too bad on gas being a 460. i was suprised

 

at $3+ a gallon, a vehicle that gets 30MPG is alot better than 10MPG going down hill. if you find somebody desparate enough to get rid of their car, they might let you make payments on it.

 

well i like driving the truck, i guess i could get a car but just prefer the truck. dont really drive too much anyway. wish it would quit raining so i could go start pulling donor parts. thats the only draw back to not having a shop

 

If you click on the link below I have made a post to another thread similar to this one.

Mine is the 9th post down.

I do have a few pics in my gallery of one I did.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/6...dding-a-c.html

 

I purchased my '77 F-150 in 1986, and the very next spring .... I did this very swap.

I collected everything from an air conditioned '73 in one junk yard for "free" just before that one went to the crushers (it was rolled). Then I found another shop where there was a '79 crew cab with air on a 400 and that guy let me have any and every thing I wanted for $100, he had already stripped the front doors and bed for another project. The AC still had a full, or it seemed full, charge. From this truck too, I took it all, and the dash and gages and anything else I could imagine I'ld ever want.

Then, I took a big piece of cardboard and trimmed it carefully to fit the engine side of the firewall, after I removed some misc items. I marked it carefully, indexed it to some long since forgotten common points, and then after it was secure, I crawled in the cab with a fine point marker and carefully drew the outline of that big hole which is big enough to crawl through on that cardboard. I also measured some several reference points and wrote that down too.

Later, at home, I removed my truck's dash and heater setup. Then I cut out the corner sections of that cardboard and left it so that I could trace the curved corners (which I knew were connected by straight cuts) and I put it in place in my truck's engine compartment. I marked the curved corners where needed, and then connected the corners with straight lines. I measured my reference points again to check, as I only wanted to cut my firewall once.

I used a sabre saw, made sure I was clear on both sides, and cut it out. I also cut the two needed dash vent holes, and the third is in the instrument set. Some of it was easier from inside, so I drilled holes from outside in to locate those lines. I had the hoses, the controls, all of it from two trucks.

Over the period of a week of slow methodical work and using two manuals, cleaning and detailing as I went along, I put it all together and used the compressor and evaporator core from the '79, the big box from the '79, the heater core from the '73 (The '79 one failed my own 20 psi air pressure in water bucket test.) -- (as well as the controls from the '73 because I liked the "Air Conditioned" script on them).

I used the hoses from the '79, and I used a new temp press switch (tube sticks in evaporator core) and new condensor and new reciever dryer . We charged it and it's never needed recharging yet, some 60,000 miles and 20 years later. "Knock on wood", that '73 heater core is still in there too.

I used plenty of some sealer on seams. I also wired a toggle switch to the compressor clutch so I can manually kick it in with any heater / vent / or defrost function. I didn't ever put the throttle kicker on, though it would help unless you just remember to compensate in town at lights. Most of my driving is road driving living in the country, and I don't run the AC all that much even when I do drive in summer unless it's just plain "HOT".

Trickiest part .... making that big hole in the firewall.

 

sounds like it would be easier to drop my 460 in it swap out my driveline from my 250 and my better body parts and build that truck lol

 

Say what??? Some folks here would KILL that guy now, or KILL to be you, and having free reign to strip whatever parts they wanted for $100. Please say the truck did not have the uber rare race track molding???

 

No, not really, nothing heavy involved. Only tricky part was making good template for big hole and somehow indexing it so the same hole could be duplicated in the same spot. After that, it really was just time consuming and the 2 rectangles for dash out lets were easy, or you could swap whole dash?

This was when the trucks were only 8-14 years old, in 1987, there were still an awful lot of these trucks roaming around. The guy that had it was going to have it hauled away anyway, offered it all to me for the towing but I didn't have nowhere to put it, so I gave him $100 and stripped what I wanted. It was maroon and white, I took what trim was on it to save for spare for mine. He had already taken the bed and front two doors for another project, I think the motor was blown .... hard to recall all the details, that was 20 years ago.

When I do mine over, I won't be using the racetrack trim again, I will just be using the single bedside molding in the dish down the sides. Already have the different ends for the rear end of the bedside dish molding to terminate it. Didn't know the racetrack was all that rare?