This is just a follow up to my “what did you do today” posts on recovering my headliner.

In my experience the A/C in these trucks (at its best) is barely good enough.
Over the years I’ve replaced all of the system components (more than once), and never had system performance like new, not that it was ever that great.

Beyond just the system efficiency I thought of cab heating... roof area, glass area, etc, and trying to minimize the work it had to do.

This past year I had the dash out for rebuild, so I again replaced all the A/C components with good quality parts... so it should be as good as it could be for the design.

I already have reasonably heavy tint on all windows and visor strip to try and minimize cab heating, so when the headliner was out for recovering I thought I’d add a layer of insulation to try and help reduce the amount of work the A/C had to do.
Instead of working upside down applying it to the inside of the roof, I just put it on the back of the headliner.

Now that we’ve had a couple of warmer days (high 80’s low 90,s) I can report that the added roof insulation has made a good amount of difference.
On initial entry the cab is still hot (heat soaked), but headliner is only warm to the touch, not real hot.
Once the A/C is running it only takes about 5 minutes to have the cab comfortable, and within about 10-15 minutes you can back off the fan as it is more than needed.

We’ll see how it goes when we get into full summer, but so far I’m very pleased... it was well worth the time and effort.

 

I added insulation to the whole truck, behind the dash and HVAC box, headliner, floor, doors, back wall behind the seat and my AC gets the truck ice cold within 8 minutes. I saw a 20° get reduction on an 80° day

 

If I ever get to the point of having to gut the cab, I’ll be sure to do everything, as the roof alone has made a good difference.

 

I agree I used Killmat as it was cheap on Amazon (I think you recommended them). I had the cab gutted and figured why not. I used 80mil (I think) everywhere

 

I used a an asphalt based sound deadner and insulation on top of mine, Helps with both noise and temperature.

 

I did notice a reduction in drumming from rain on the roof, even though I didn’t apply it to the roof.

 

I want to add an update to this thread.
(It’s my thread, I get to resurrect It ;-) ).

The difference the insulation made was consistent even through summer temperatures.
But what made a big difference was I got the whole windshield done with ceramic tint.
I’m sure it isn’t legal, but when I had my other windows re-tinted with 20% regular tint (old tint was starting to bubble), I got 85% ceramic tint on the windshield.
The high tint level regular tint has good UV reflection, but ceramic tint has very high UV reflection even with low tint (so it doesn’t look like it’s tinted).
While ceramic tint is more expensive, it doesn’t hurt as bad as doing all windows with it.
I’m very pleased with the results and feel it was money well spent.
The A/C is very effective now.