Dual zone climate swap

[Killavolt]

I'm only posting this because I've seen this swap mentioned on this message board and I've been looking into doing it myself.

In the threads I've seen there is very little information about it, so I'm going to provide the information that's lacking.
I'll be making a video about the process to post on my channel, but it won't be for a couple of months at best because I have some financial things to take care of first before I proceed further with the actual swap.

For those wondering why I'm "wasting" my time with this, it's simple. I like doing things, interesting things, and this is a thing that's interesting to me and it may benefit some others out there.

No pictures or anything yet because as of now I've just been doing a lot of digging through the factory service manual, speaking to chrysler techs, and sourcing parts from a local wrecker. The parts just became available to me yesterday.

If you want to do a dual zone climate swap, be aware it is a great deal of work. I'll be swapping the dual zone from a 2004 1500, into my 2005 2500, unless I can find a 2500 Laramie to pull the dash from because there is one minor difference that's preventing me from fully optioning my truck.

You really only need two(three?) parts.
The HVAC housing behind the dash from a dual zone truck, the wiring harness attached to it and the climate control head.

If you have at least an SLT then the ONE wire to enable dual zone is already there in the dash harness/connector C200, which runs up to the "Control-A/C-Heater C1" Pin 13, it's a Light Blue/Brown wire.
If you have single zone then this wire simply isn't in the HVAC side connector.

To remove the dash isn't hard, but is a pain in the ass. There are 10 bolts holding the dash to the truck, plus 4 holding the plastic along the top by the windshield. I went into this having never done it before and had the dash and HVAC box out in 1.5 hours.
3 bolts on the drivers side, 3 bolts on the passenger side, 2 bolts at the base in the middle by the airbag modules, 2 bolts along the top under the speaker bezel/windshield, as well as 4 more smaller screws, and 2 final bolts above the steering column bolting the metal tube in the dash to the metal plate holding the steering column.

You need to remove the steering or at least should because it's easier. And make sure all plugs are disconnected. Once those bolts are all removed and connectors all unplugged the dash will lift up and pull out.
You don't need to remove stuff like the radio, cluster, etc, just the glove box and steering column and some bezels to reveal bolts.

The HVAC housing is held in place with 3 main bolts inside the cab, 2 on top and 1 on the bottom. There are two bolts going through the fire that also hold it in place, one just below AC lines and one behind the PCM, the PCM will need to be moved to access this bolt.
Then the HVAC housing will pull right out.

Again, this took me a grand total of 1.5 hours to pull the entire dash AND HVAC housing, and that was running into some problems and taking time to figure out some stuff. I had a hard time removing the AC lines and heater hoses.

Before I swap in the housing to my own truck I'm going to get a new evaporator and heater core, and replace the blend doors and pieces with a metal alternative.

There is no computer programming that needs to be done, the HVAC actuators will simply need to be re-calibrated at the dealership and they've told me that they can do this.

So this should at least give anyone who wants to try this, or who is searching for it some more information than what I've found on the interwebs.

The cost of the HVAC housing was $175 CAD, pulled myself, or $250 if they pulled it. That included the climate control head.

Now the REALLY interesting part is that if I swap in the dash from the 1500 I will also be able to add in adjustable pedals and infinity sound as well as electronic shift 4WD(I don't want that though) and heated seats.
The problem with this as I mentioned way above is that in my 2500 the passenger side A pillar has a 6 pin connector (C206) for the electrochromatic mirror and clearance lights, whereas the 1500 has only a 2 pin C206 connector for clearance lights, and the mirror stuff is in the drivers side.

So barring that little issue, I could otherwise drop in the entire dash, save time and add options to my truck that it didn't come with. In the time it takes me to get my other issues sorted out I'm going to be looking to source a 2500 Laramie dash with the same options and same C206 connector.

So there it is. If this thread doesn't get canned, I'll update it periodically when there is something to actually update.

 

[Killavolt]

made a mistake, I miscounted the bolts, there are 12 I think I mentioned.

 

[Ozymandias]

Awesome write up, thanks for all that first hand information.

 

[Killavolt]

well, as it stands I can drop the HVAC housing into my truck and should be good to go with dual zone, but I've decided to change the scope of the project and I'm now currently trying to source a dashboard fro ma 2004 or 2005 2500 Laramie with all the options I want.

By swapping the dash wiring harness I should be able to add in the things like adjustable pedals, heated seats steering wheel controls infinity sound etc.
I just have to find one from a 2500 specifically, and that has those options. So this will take some time.

There is one potential truck 2.5 hours away that MIGHT have everything, but someones put an after market radio in it and I really hope they haven't done so by cutting wires all over the place.

 

[Killavolt]

More info.
Looking through the parts manual and doing more research about connector C206, it looks like it's a 2004 model issue that has that connector as a 2 pin plug on both the 1500 and 2500 for 2004.....at least as far as I can by "checking fit" for the wiring harness.
It seems that in 2005 the wiring harness will fit both a 1500 and 2500.
I cannot however confirm this 100% until I get the harness myself.

The part number for the harness is 56051212AB - This is the dash wiring harness, Sales code XAP(Power adjustable pedals). Because it includes the adjustable pedals it should also include the other features.
for steering wheel radio controls the additional harness 56049424AF is needed, this is sales code RDZ but these minor harnesses like steering wheel controls, and the electronic 4x4 transfer case pigtail can be pulled off of a 2004 or 2005 1500 or 2500 I believe. I can confirm more of this later as this project progresses.

I believe I will instead take a chance and order the wiring harness as I can currently find it brand new on ebay.

From this point I will find out what pigtails I need, where to get them, and I will most likely picked up a bare dashboard shell without wiring so I can assemble everything in the dash and just do a fast and direct swap of the dashboard and wiring.

 

[Killavolt]

ok so I said **** ordering a wiring harness because the cheapest I could find the harness alone would cost me about $400 CAD.....so instead I headed off to a wreckers 2.5 hours away today and grabbed the entire dashboard from the ONLY 2005 2500 I could find in Ontario at a wreckers with all of the features.

Unfortunately it's not a "perfect" harness because some ******* redneck done gone ahead and got'er dun installing an aftermarket head unit and hacked up the speaker wiring.....but I can fix that easily enough, I'm just very upset/disappointed by it, I wish I could have gotten a completely in tact harness, but this is the price of impatience.

Also the actual price so far is:
HVAC housing-Dual Zone, pulled myself from local wreckers: $175 CAD
Dashboard with wiring harness, infinity amp/speakers, and nothing else except the dashpad and plastic cover stuff: $339 CAD+2.5 hour drive either way, ~$100 gas in my guzzler(soon to be fixed though, exhaust leaks everywhere, headers on the way to repair it)

Just to be clear, this is not just the dual zone swap, I've decided to go further than that and convert my SLT into a Laramie with all the comfort options like heated seats.

This was the ONLY truck in all of Ontario that I could find with a dashboard that had all the right features.

Why take the entire dash? Because it's going to be way friggin easier to pull my dash out and swap in a whole new dash, than to pull mine out, pull off the wiring, add the new wiring and reinstall everything.

this will be a direct bolt up installation that will save a lot of time.

 

[Killavolt]

ok, so it turns out for the FULL option package wiring harness 56051216AB is what's needed. This one also includes the bluetooth module wiring.

as it stands right now I can't find one of these harnesses ANYWHERE and I can't figure out what part I would search for at car-part.com to find the right truck.

What I'll do most likely is use my current harness and just keep searching until I find the 56051216AB, and then I'll most likely go all out and do this again lmao.
but we'll see, I can't really predict how the future will go, so I'm sticking with my current plan for now unless one of these magical harnesses becomes available.

 

[Ozymandias]

According to this site the part# was superseded.
And it was used in almost every Ram of the line up.

https://www.factorychryslerparts.co...ent-Panel-CMA-RCK-RSP/4417396/56051216AB.html

 

[Timd32]

Interesting thread, in the US we we have a pretty large database that the insurance companies use to find used parts most wrecking yards use a similar platform. This allows the adjusters to get the quotes for the parts. Dont know if it works the same for Canada. But it could be a good resource for you to get some better pricing. Www.car-part.com is a website you can use to query one of those systems to look for trucks and the sort, as well as specific parts. There are a few systems like that.

My only concern is I have worked not worked on this vintage Ram heater controls but have worked on a few of the dual zone controls for some other vehicles that are older and the little actuators and plastic parts are the weak link. Anyway to research those for the year your working on and address the ones that are only accessible with the dash out I would suggest doing something about those.

Take like a early 2000's Lincoln Town car, they have multiple actuators and eventually they all fail, but you can get to like 4 of the maybe 7 actuators with out pulling the dash, and you can actually swap over the little arms and pieces if you disassemble the little motors, which can be a good way to save money as some are like $50 more then the others, but I found are all the same base with a different arm, you just pop the case apart and can work to swap the part where the little gear part.

Good luck, neat project,

One thing if these have airbags in the dash or in the pillars, I would check the air bag configuration and ensure the dashes are truly the same and there were no engineering changes that could cause the air bags to not deploy properly due to any sort of configuration change even the smallest details like trim pieces, as the deployment timing of those are critical. I think its all the same but worth a quick review since you are pretty deep on the details already.

 

[Killavolt]

Yeah I've checked through car-part.com but the problem there is the list seems to have not been updated since like 1998 or something. There are no items from newer technologies, for instance I can't find anything "handsfree" or "bluetooth" or anything that might seem like it would be relevant to those two things, so unfortunately I can't search for a truck with a bluetooth module.

In the 2005 and lower model year trucks I'm not sure that there are side curtain airbags.....but if there are it shouldn't be a problem because I'm not removing any trim or anything and the wiring is the same from what I can see. I will most likely need a cab harness with heated seats though otherwise I don't think that exists by default.
My harness came from the same truck as mine (2005, 2500)

As for the HVAC system, yes I'll be replacing all that stuff with Blend Door USA's repair kit. Heater Treater is **** IMO and looks like it was made by a high school student trying to get his end of the year project out the door as quick as possible for a barely passing grade.

Problem right now is money. I'm tapped out and it's going to take me a while to recover from this, so I may not even be able to do this until like next year since I have nowhere indoors to work in the winter. Between Blend Door USA and the evaporator/heater core it's going to cost probably about $800 CAD to refurbish the HVAC housing.
That's all that's stopping me right now.

I should have a video going up soon... Part 1, the discussion part.

 

[Killavolt]

Part one of the video is up.
Part two (the work) will happens when I can come up with the roughly $750CAD needed to buy the HVAC repair parts.

 

[Killavolt]

So, coming back to this, I'm currently working on the project now.
Blend Doors USA replacement doors have been installed, and I've swapped dashboard wiring to add a bunch of Laramie options.

And yes, it all works. Swapping dual zone was as "easy" as adding the HVAC box and climate control head, that's it.
Then I went further with the wiring in the dash board to add more options, and it all works, plug and play.

It is a **** ton of work and money for very little benefit though, but given that this idea started before COVID, it's given me something to do while I'm stuck at home due to to COVID lockdowns and ****.