Well here it is, I started about 5am, finished it at 7pm. LOL but i took a 4hr nap between so ya. 15 minutes? who ever thought it took 15 minutes is smoking something.


thought id listen to the radio while doing this, needless to say that didnt pan out.






i figured since im doing this I may as well do the ashtray too. However for future mods I want easy access to the new panel where the ashtry is, in order to do that i hadd to remove the floor console, and the ashtray





heres the ashtray after i cut a square hole in the top of it with my soldering gun. I then sanded the edges smooth so its a snap to run wires.



here i am comparing the bexel i bought last year to mine. im in the process of shaving some things.... we'll see how that works out.




heres my new switch, picked it up at AZ for $2



heres the hole in the top of the ashtray



pre drilled the mounting points.



heres my lame attempt to shave a decal off the new bezel, if u got a better way im all ears




heres my fat hand, and im holding, would ya believe it? its the fog light wiring harness. i dunno where it goes but theres no harness in the front of the truck yet thats clipped on behind the bezel.



all finished - sorta. my radio isnt seated properly... man that was the hardest part getting that radio back into its hole. i was tempted to actually cut off all the extra speaker wires on it cause they were being a major pita.





heres my dirty truck that i havent cleaned out in like 2 months.








so ya it wasnt bad, the switch plate took awhile waiting for paint to dry. the hardest part was stuffing the radio back into the hole since it clearly wanted absolutely no part of that.

 

What am I missing? What is the switch for?

 

to turn the ac compressor on and off at my liesure. instead of having the compressor kick on whenever it feels like, the switch is a manual control. so if the switch is set to 'off' even if i set the dial to max ac, the compressor will not come on.

 

took me more time to cut that notch for the switch in my din adaptor plate than splicing in the on/off for the a/c

took all of 20 minutes lol

 

I would have put another switch next to the two you already have under the radio
I thought you were putting in an ashtray?

 

looks good man..nice touch..

NOW CLEAN YOUR TRUCK!!! (:

 

Looks good Dave. I like the idea of putting the switch down by the airbag switch.

Mine only took about 30 minutes, but I had the stock radio at the time. The new radio would probably fight me, like your's did. Those "adapter" DIN plates really do suck.
Also, my first switch was a lighted one from radio shack that self destructed after about 10 cycles. That added another 10 minutes to yank it out.
Finally used a nice sturdy one like you have. I figure a commercial grade switch will better tolerate the arcing that DC current tends to produce.

A big reason for the mod is to allow you to recirculate the inside air without running the A/C. I like to chill the air inside, and then shut down the compressor for a while. When it warms up, I kick the compressor back in.
For some reason, Ford thinks the compressor needs to run everytime you recirculate the inside air.

 

I've considered somthing like this too. Mostly because I don't personally like to have the AC compressor kicking off/on when it's 35 degrees outside.

btw: Ford is'nt the only one. Other brands do it too.

Rich

 

well splicing the wire was easy, i picked up some lil tube thingys that u take one end of the wire and stick it in the hole, then take the new wire and stick it in the other end of the tube and clamp the middle and viola! that was easy, took all of like 3 minutes, its everything else

the lil plate under my radio is just a lil piece of crappy flimsy plastic. while it prolly would have looked better with a 3rd switch there, i dont have too much faith in the integrity of that lil plate. for one, you gotta be uber careful when u remove it so u dont brake it. for two, i need a better spot for my switches. behind my dash is just a big knot of wires and stuff and feeding any new wire thru the mess is just a btch. hopefully this plate will solve that problem. besides its a nice spot to stick my other switches, such as for turning off my brake lights when i wanna sneak around

 

Looks good man.

 

Nice touch. I think your steering column is gonna snap off from the weight of all those keys though.