Climate Control?
 

Alright, I know this is probably a really dumb question, but I keep thinking about how sweet it would be if it were possible so I have to ask. How much work would have to be done to make the Mustang's AC system compatible with one of the automatic climate control things that are in Explorers, Expeditions, etc.?

I thought the same myself but never persued the question.

Don't have an answer, but good question.....I have my A/C on today and it got really cold so I shut it off....then I got really hot......but if there were climate control that wouldn't happen!

As a former Vette guy, I can tell you, I now much prefer manual units like in the stang. The other automatic ones are also never the right temperature. Never cold enough when you first get in and always requires adjustments up and down by a couple degrees. If I had to choose, I would choose manual.

You could pretty simply (for someone with good auto electrical skills) rig up a mechanical thermostat through a relay to your existing controls. Simply setting your controls to how you want to cool (how cold, how high the fan goes, etc..) and allowing the thermostat to electronically control current supply to the thing.

You could also use something like a 6 or 7 position switch to emulate the controls of the main dial and thereby bypass the factory control entirely. As long as you're only playing at the switch (knob) end there's little restriction on making it automatic. I'd leave the fan knob and temp knob where they're at but other than that it's not technically hard.. just requires some skillz.

I was actually researching this, and apparently the temp knob on our cars isn't electric, it's mechanical. It's connected to cable that'd I'd guess controls some sort of flap/door that allows you to let in all cold air, all hot air, or a variable mix of the two. So at least from a temp standpoint, it seems impossible.

it's definitely not impossible, but it will be a lot of work. ya just have to figure out if its really worth the hassle.

i've seen it done with other cars that also had mechanical controls for the ac. and somewhere i saw a mustang that had to convert it to electrical so he could put the ac controls in the glove box...

my thought was to use the knob that controls what function you want, not the air speed or temp knobs as the basis of control. You usually know how fast you want it to heat/cool and what your heat/cold threshold is which makes that a pretty easy thing to do... provided that the functions are electrically activated... otherwise you can use some servos to actuate the mechanical linkages as desired.