[Nathan_M]

hey guys so I'm almost 100% that i will be getting that 5 speed Cummins Wednesday only thing with it aside from speed sensor is it doesn't have A/C which will suck in the summer and I'm wondering if its possible to put A/C on it and how difficult it would be and what I'd need. obviously i know ill need an A/C compressor, serpentine belt with A/C and probably some sort of wiring (unsure of what) but what else would i need? anything helps. thanks

 

[Antonm]

Its possible, anything is possible with enough time , effort and money. But I think you're going to be real surprised at how much time, effort and money it'll take.
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[jimduchek]

I strongly suspect that no-A/C trucks were rare enough that Dodge would not have produced separate wiring harnesses. If that's the case, everything under the hood (compressor, condenser, drier, pressure sensors, etc) should be relatively bolt-on and plug-in from a donor truck. I don't believe non-A/C trucks got a different PCM (which controls the compressor). The dash side is, I think, going to be the hard part. At the very least your entire dash will have to come out of the truck to remove the airbox and add the evaporator -- It's unclear to me from the info I can find whether or not it's a different airbox entirely. You'll need to cut the firewall to run the refrigerant lines. You will almost certainly damage the dash in the process -- there are not a lot of 94-97 Ram dashes still completely intact after 20+ years in the sun, so that's gonna be a thing.

I'm with @Antonm. It's a doable project, but challenging -- maybe too challenging to be worth it. More doable if you don't actually need the truck running and you can have stuff just sitting apart (and undriveable) while you do research and try to find parts. There's not a lot of non-A/C trucks out there, so finding pictures/info/help will be an issue, I think you're going to need to start taking stuff apart just to know what's there. On the bright side, I suspect non-A/C was a lot more common in the 1500s and the dash-side half should be identical to the 1500s.

Frankly... if you really need A/C, you better be getting this truck for an amazing price because it's going to be a lot of effort to add it. If the price is merely good-to-fair, I'd say no and wait for another truck.

 

[Antonm]

I strongly suspect that no-A/C trucks were rare enough that Dodge would not have produced separate wiring harnesses.

I don't believe non-A/C trucks got a different PCM (which controls the compressor).

Frankly... if you really need A/C, you better be getting this truck for an amazing price because it's going to be a lot of effort to add it. If the price is merely good-to-fair, I'd say no and wait for another truck.

I was initially thinking the same thing, that surely dodge just put the same wiring harness in everything. But then I remembered that Dodge is crazy and does stuff that makes no sense, like how the non-cruise control trucks got a different steering wheel clock spring.
As for the PCM, while the PCM itself/hardware maybe be identical, the internal programming software maybe different (that would be easy and cost Dodge nothing to have a different program flashed in).
And I absolutely agree with you on possibly finding another truck. Unless this truck is a STEAL, just find another truck that has AC. Adding the AC would likely be more difficult and time consuming than converting a 2WD to 4WD, and that has been done often enough that its common knowledge that it isn't worth it.
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[texasprd]

Here's a fairly recent thread that mentions adding AC to a non-AC truck... According to the thread starter, the pigtails/connectors are all there, but the PCM may be an issue - he gives a workaround for the PCM