05 Silverado duel climate control swap

YourLife · May 22, 2006

Alright I've got an 05 Silverado excab LS... it has the ugly dual climate controls with the two vertical control knobs. I bought the digital HVAC controls off of ebay that came out of an 03 Silverado LT. The controls are identical to what is in all of the higher class Silverado's... SS's.... Tahoe's and Yukon's. The fit and look is awesome.. but there's one problem. The HVAC control unit has two wiring harnesses connected to it. One for main power, temp, and vents... and the other harness is just for the fan speed control. The harness's for my original unit are labeled as "lt blue" and "black"... on the digital unit they are labeled "lt blue" and "gray". The lt blue harness fits perfect and works perfect on both... but the other is not so good... My question is how can I make this work? Do I need to hack up the wires and find the "gray" harness to make it work?.. if i go that route I would need a wiring diagram for my 05... where could I find that?. I haven't gone further in my dash than this and still haven't even taken out the OEM cd player so is there a possibility that the other harness might be hidden back in my dash panel?... The only reason I ask that is b/c my truck is not a base model and I wondered if maybe they shared wiring harnesses.

Thanks for any help.

Trav_13 · June 8, 2006

I am not exactly for sure if this would be what would be considered an easy swap. I have heard of guys attempting this before and basically it becomes more trouble than it is worth. The reason is there is a lot of extra wiring involved for this, even your airducts in your dash are drilled and sensors are integrated for the sensing of the interior temperature to allow the Auto feature to keep the temperature consistant. I personally dismantle some of these trucks for their interiors as kind of a side hobby and basically the dash harnesses are going to be different. If you really want to do it I suggest going and swapping out the complete dash harness which can generally be picked up by buying a complete dash from a wrecker or finding someone on Ebay like myself that offers these harnesses from time to time.

Thanks

Travis

Alright I've got an 05 Silverado excab LS... it has the ugly dual climate controls with the two vertical control knobs. I bought the digital HVAC controls off of ebay that came out of an 03 Silverado LT. The controls are identical to what is in all of the higher class Silverado's... SS's.... Tahoe's and Yukon's. The fit and look is awesome.. but there's one problem. The HVAC control unit has two wiring harnesses connected to it. One for main power, temp, and vents... and the other harness is just for the fan speed control. The harness's for my original unit are labeled as "lt blue" and "black"... on the digital unit they are labeled "lt blue" and "gray". The lt blue harness fits perfect and works perfect on both... but the other is not so good... My question is how can I make this work? Do I need to hack up the wires and find the "gray" harness to make it work?.. if i go that route I would need a wiring diagram for my 05... where could I find that?. I haven't gone further in my dash than this and still haven't even taken out the OEM cd player so is there a possibility that the other harness might be hidden back in my dash panel?... The only reason I ask that is b/c my truck is not a base model and I wondered if maybe they shared wiring harnesses.

Thanks for any help.

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duramaxHD · June 13, 2006

Alright I've got an 05 Silverado excab LS... it has the ugly dual climate controls with the two vertical control knobs. I bought the digital HVAC controls off of ebay that came out of an 03 Silverado LT. The controls are identical to what is in all of the higher class Silverado's... SS's.... Tahoe's and Yukon's. The fit and look is awesome.. but there's one problem. The HVAC control unit has two wiring harnesses connected to it. One for main power, temp, and vents... and the other harness is just for the fan speed control. The harness's for my original unit are labeled as "lt blue" and "black"... on the digital unit they are labeled "lt blue" and "gray". The lt blue harness fits perfect and works perfect on both... but the other is not so good... My question is how can I make this work? Do I need to hack up the wires and find the "gray" harness to make it work?.. if i go that route I would need a wiring diagram for my 05... where could I find that?. I haven't gone further in my dash than this and still haven't even taken out the OEM cd player so is there a possibility that the other harness might be hidden back in my dash panel?... The only reason I ask that is b/c my truck is not a base model and I wondered if maybe they shared wiring harnesses.

Thanks for any help.

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you're going to be doing a LOT of work.

new blower motor (manual controls use a rheostat for speed control, auto controls use PWM), all new ducting with the temp sensors built in (theres about 7 of them IIRC, and the wiring that goes with them), you'll need to install a cabin ambient temp sensor above the drivers seat in the headliner (no, its not the onstar mic ), you'll need to install a new ambient light sensor in the dash (sunload sensor). New wiring harness to go with it......basically you'll need a lot of money or a donor truck.

linda · June 28, 2006

you're going to be doing a LOT of work.

new blower motor (manual controls use a rheostat for speed control, auto controls use PWM), all new ducting with the temp sensors built in (theres about 7 of them IIRC, and the wiring that goes with them), you'll need to install a cabin ambient temp sensor above the drivers seat in the headliner (no, its not the onstar mic ), you'll need to install a new ambient light sensor in the dash (sunload sensor). New wiring harness to go with it......basically you'll need a lot of money or a donor truck.

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So your saying 2 maybe 3 hours tops?...

I have also seen many attemp this mod and end up back where they started. Your gonna need some serious schematics and doner parts on hand. Good luck.

MS3DALE · July 8, 2006

I don't think I would even try it and I have access to all the wiring diagrams and parts.

Honestly,I have the auto-climate control and I don't like it at all,If I could go back and buy my truck over again thats the one thing I would not have gotten.

andyhehman · July 8, 2006

i have got the old duel one with the verticle climate controls and i recently bought the digital one. i like how the digital one looks when i have it in however the plug that controls fan speed is different. i am not really interested in the auto feature or even if the temperature that the digital readout says is accurate. i just want the get the plugs to match and i have the original plug and i also have one with about six inches of wiring that will fit it the the digital climate control. is there are way i can cut the old plug of that has seven wires and connect it the the plug that has 10? i know that none of the colors match and i didnt know if some one could tell me what wire is what. i have looked everywhere and i cant find a picture that has them all labels so if someone could tell me it would be much appriated. or send me a link that has a picture

thanks alot

andy

oh by the way it is a 2006 silverado

thanks again

05_2500HD · July 19, 2006

i have got the old duel one with the verticle climate controls and i recently bought the digital one. i like how the digital one looks when i have it in however the plug that controls fan speed is different. i am not really interested in the auto feature or even if the temperature that the digital readout says is accurate. i just want the get the plugs to match and i have the original plug and i also have one with about six inches of wiring that will fit it the the digital climate control. is there are way i can cut the old plug of that has seven wires and connect it the the plug that has 10? i know that none of the colors match and i didnt know if some one could tell me what wire is what. i have looked everywhere and i cant find a picture that has them all labels so if someone could tell me it would be much appriated. or send me a link that has a picture
thanks alot

andy

oh by the way it is a 2006 silverado

thanks again

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I was also wondering about this....

badhammer · July 20, 2006

it is not worth the trouble to try and do this plus you will void the warranty on your truck as any dealer and GM will NOT warranty any service lights or wiring issues that will crop up as you have moidfied the system. the A/c control heads in all the new trucks are actually modules that commuciate with the BCM ( body control module ) and the radio and are programmed if you do succed in doing this the first time a GM dealership has to program your truck for a software up date for a problem the truck will not accept the program and cause error codes and may even cause the truck to not run anymore because the old software is earsed before the new program is downloaded to the truck.

and if the a/c control head is ever replaced under warranty, when they look up the parts it will come up with the manual control head and they won't warranty it as soon as they find out you messed with it.

if you wanted to have the Auto A/C controls you should have gotten a truck with them.

is it worth a couple of grand out of your pocket to repair your mistake and the lost down time of your truck that you just bought just to put in a COOL looking control head?

05_2500HD · July 20, 2006

it is not worth the trouble to try and do this plus you will void the warranty on your truck as any dealer and GM will NOT warranty any service lights or wiring issues that will crop up as you have moidfied the system. the A/c control heads in all the new trucks are actually modules that commuciate with the BCM ( body control module ) and the radio and are programmed if you do succed in doing this the first time a GM dealership has to program your truck for a software up date for a problem the truck will not accept the program and cause error codes and may even cause the truck to not run anymore because the old software is earsed before the new program is downloaded to the truck.
and if the a/c control head is ever replaced under warranty, when they look up the parts it will come up with the manual control head and they won't warranty it as soon as they find out you messed with it.

if you wanted to have the Auto A/C controls you should have gotten a truck with them.

is it worth a couple of grand out of your pocket to repair your mistake and the lost down time of your truck that you just bought just to put in a COOL looking control head?

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Good point....